During Kid's Yoga today, A-Shin put a tremendous amount of effort into making the kids "concentrate" by saying the word "concentrate" almost every other sentence. Judging from kids' behavior, I don't think the point was readily taken; however, I'm glad to see that our previous communication on kids' yoga had stirred up some neurons in the thought process. Kid's yoga is by far my favorite class in Yoga Living. I know this because I always have so many notes for the teacher after each class that I assisted upon, but I must confess-it is truly easier to say then to do. And I respect every teacher who come to me for my opinion, that is truly an Act of Namaste.
After the class, I gave A-shin more notes. This time kids are more behaved (no more climbing on both A-shin's legs and back and less high pitched screaming from Wendy). Now I see the problem is more internal. I sensed that he is still a bit uneasy with the kids, because he wasn't expect the kids to be spontaneous and have to cope with it simultaneously. Another thing was the tempo of the class was very draggy in the beginning of the class when he asked the children to sit in a circle to introduce themselves. There was an awkward moment, Xiao-Bao who is 5 yrs old was probably experiencing her first awkward silence before adolescence.... I think the teacher is responsible for keeping the flow or tempo in control, but instead we bestow that responsibility to kids, and so the consequences is usually disastrous. During Kid's Yoga meeting, I keep hearing teachers saying "how to control the kids'...Now i realized it's not a matter of controlling the kids, it's a matter of control the flow of the class, teacher needs to think about the rhythm of the class and then plan the content that will fit the flow desired. In the end I suggested A-Shin with more spirituality reading, he said he is not ready for it so I just smiled and told him to take it easy, and we can always discuss about the class when we have to. He is trying :)
We have 2 new students today, 2 brothers, Andrew and Max. Older brother seem a bit shy, introverted and extremely intelligent but has a lot of things going on in his mind. The little one is so cute.
I looked at my old children yoga notes, in it says Babaji " Children 12 and up can begin to do adult curriculum of regular pranayama and asana." I feel we should start thinking about teenager yoga.
