10 Ways To Turn Your Yoga Work Into Pleasure

A few years ago Angel and I were lying in bed while our then 3-year-old daughter Delphin was examining our ears and our hearts and giving us injections with a syringe from her Doctor playset. A bit more into the game Angel asked Delphin “so would you like to be a Doctor when you grows up?”

We found Delphin’s answer quite inspiring… “Don’t be silly Mum, I’m just playing. When I grow up I want to be a Unicorn.”

We take our work so seriously, sometimes too seriously, and that can make our work stop being fun. Sometimes we are so serious that we get burnt out!

Isn’t life about happiness though? Aren’t we supposed to enjoy the work we do? Isn’t yoga about taking pleasure at every moment and every step we take?

Look, children can be challenging, even annoying at times… but with the right attitude, you as well as them can have more fun while playing yoga.

 

Here are a few ways to help you lighten up when you go and spread the yoga love with children of all ages:

 

  1. Come to class to play not to work. Doing yoga with kids is the most fun and liberating thing ever, and a great way to pull out of your own darkness at times.

 

 

  1. Change your expectations. Remember that it’s just kids and that chatting, playing around, wandering away for bit and not always being perfect is part of being human and especially a human child.  If your expectations are not realistic you are going to get upset… 

Most adults forgot how it was to be kids and they therefore expect kids to listen and participate and do what they are told to all the time… but kids are kids; they play and laugh and explore and test boundaries and express their emotions and their needs whenever they feel like – Things that we adult should learn to do more! 

 

  1. Let yourself be a bit wild and crazy! By loosening up you will enjoy the class more, but the best benefit of this is that it will make the kids more focused on you. I call it “The Law of the Jungle”; the loudest and most dramatic person in the tribe becomes the natural leader that everyone follows.

 

 

  1. Change the way you see things!  The exact same actions can be seen as creative or as disturbing depending on how you look at it.  Incorporate the kids seemingly disturbing actions into your class.  For example, if one of the kids is starting to jump up and down on one leg while you are telling everyone to do the tree pose, make the whole class practice jumping trees.  Who said that jumping trees are less good for you than standing trees?  Jumping trees will make your legs strong!

 

  1. Never stick to your plan! If everything went exactly according to your plan it means that something went terribly wrong in your class! You probably looked more at your plan than at the kids. Go with the flow; be flexible and inventive, and willing to recreate the class at any moment according to the children needs.

 

  1. Don’t worry too much about yoga! It is OK to do other things in between. Dancing, drama, acrobatics, juggling, clowning, even soccer… anything can be yoga by inserting a few yoga poses there and with the right attitude! 
Gopala and daughter - 10 Ways To Turn Your Yoga Work Into Pleasure - Rainbow Yoga Training

 

 

  1. Don’t insist on anything! Move to another pose or game if the kids lose interest or if they don’t quite get it… It’s always next next next – Don’t stop even for a second!

 

  1. Never fight with a kid! Go with what they want. Need and want is the same thing when you meet the kids just for a couple of hours every week. Parenting and teaching are very different and in the short span of time you spend with the kids you can only teach by personal example.  Going against the grain just wastes precious time of your class and ruins the atmosphere. 

Fighting, shouting and getting angry is definitely not yoga – but adapting and adjusting is!

 

  1. Give what you want to get! Being a teacher is having a sort of relationship with your students. And like in any relationship, we are mirrors of each other and we get back whatever we give. So if you respect the kids, they will respect you; if you listen to the kids, they will listen to you; if you give them control, if you give them choices, if you let them be the leaders, they will let you lead too.

 

 

  1. Bond with each kid in a personal way! Come to class 15 minutes before and stay after. Listen to their stories and get to know them. Make them your friends – It is your best bet for leading a successful and fun class and a much more pleasant and useful way than reprimanding to create a relationship of trust between you.

Those little guys are awesome people, and at the end of the day your heart can be full of wonderful memories of playing yoga with all of your new little friends.

So what do you want to be when you grow up? Maybe we grew up too much and it’s time to take things more lightly again and play life like a child… or a Unicorn!

 

Want to become a kids yoga teacher?

 

Become a kids yoga teacher - Rainbow Yoga Training

MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE WITH YOGA AND MINDFULNESS

Rainbow Yoga trained more than 30,000 Kids Yoga Teachers since 2007. We make yoga fun for children and young people of all age groups and for the whole family too! Our yoga consists of many poses and stretches that have different physical benefits for our health and well-being, breathing, relaxation, meditation and mindfulness exercises for our minds, and social interaction, playfulness, meaning, deep life lessons and fun for our spirit.

Thinking about the impact of all those amazing certified yoga teachers, educators, parents and therapists we have trained to teach yoga to children and yoga for teens; we are making a huge difference for the next generation bringing peace, love, kindness and resilience into their lives. Education departments, schools, health programs and individuals in many countries have adopted yoga as a form of exercise and a method to decrees stress and increase wellbeing. We are the biggest and most-loved kid’s yoga teacher training in the world and we are here tp provide you with everything you will need to teach successful, exciting, meaningful, engaging and fun yoga to children, teenagers and families.

THE BEST ONLINE YOGA TEACHER TRAINING – LEARN TOOLS TO HELP KIDS AND FAMILIES FIND CONNECTION, RELEASE STRESS, INCREASE RESILIENCE AND BRING ON A SENSE OF WELL BEING AND MENTAL BALANCE

Rainbow Kids Yoga offers the most comprehensive, practical, and engaging children yoga teacher training certification in the world! Our course will enable you to deliver children yoga classes that will connects your students to themselves, each other, and the environment. Through unique and engaging practices of mindfulness and yoga your students and community will be able to find connections, enhance well-being and thrive as grounded, integrated and well balanced individuals.

At our training, all while having fun, you will become a children yoga instructor through a lot of experiential practice, insightful theory, yoga poses and sequences, mindfulness practices and relaxation. You will learn how to build fun, engaging, and fitness-level-appropriate children yoga classes for all ages, from toddlers to teenagers. At our kid’s yoga teacher training you will find over 300 videos presenting how to make yoga poses accessible and fun! Believe it or not, yoga can be extremely boring for children and for adults too… In Rainbow Yoga, we make yoga in a fun so that children learn easily and want to do more of it. Yoga is so good for you, but for children to want to want to do yoga you will need to learn to spice it all up and this is what our kid’s yoga online teacher training is for!

This is the perfect resource for yoga teachers, parents, educators and therapists to find and discover hundreds of yoga poses, yoga games and mindfulness practices for children in a way that makes it is easy to learn and easy to enjoy.

Yoga poses for kids: Yoga encourages a positive and healthy lifestyle for the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of children as it helps in the development of strength, stamina, and endurance, high levels of positive energy, resilience, focus, self-awareness, and awareness of our environment.

Yoga for children empowers them with increased concentration, calm, peace, and contentment at a mental level leading to inner and outer peace and harmony. The Rainbow Kids Yoga Teacher Training includes a digital manual (a hard copy that can be purchased) as part of the course. This is specialized online yoga teacher training. Here we will focus on how to teach yoga to children and teens, and how to help them release stress, relax, stretch, energize – All in creative and fun ways while taking into consideration their unique needs, whether they are physical, social, mental, or emotional. 

You will learn to teach the youngest yogis and those with emotional and mental challenges techniques to assist them with impulse control and self-regulation. Our courses provide a platform and a foundation to promote the healthy development of the hearts, bodies, and minds of young individuals.

The Rainbow Kids Yoga Training is the largest and most well-regarded Kids Yoga Teacher Training in the world. Our graduates teach everywhere using our diploma including schools, kindergartens, daycare centers, early learning centers, Yoga studios, gyms, fitness centers, birthday parties, private and group classes and more.

 

AFFORDABLE LEARNING AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

Join our Yoga Revolution and become a kids’ yoga teacher today through our online yoga teacher training or in-person yoga certification courses. You will be left with a smile on your face, a wealth of knowledge and an ignited spirit to spread the love and joy of yoga.

For our online training, you can allow 24 hours to receive your access and for physical products such as the Rainbow Kids Yoga Book, you can allow 2-4 weeks to receive it by mail. The books are printed on demand before being shipped, but it is worth the wait 😊

HISTORY OF RAINBOW YOGA

Rainbow Yoga is a fun and constantly evolving family mission and lovingly born in 2007, to give people the tools to teach fun, engaging, and creative in=person and online yoga classes for kids, teens, families, partners, and communities. Rainbow Yoga is interactive and social and all about connection; we touch, hug, move, breathe and co-create together our yoga magically and playfully.

Rainbow Yoga offers a variety of unique and comprehensive teacher training certification courses all over the world offering a well-rounded, in-depth learning experience through a combination of play, practical theory, and fun.The Rainbow Yoga Teacher training is renowned for being captivating, dynamic, loving, and life changing. It is condensed with a lifetime of knowledge and hands-on experience from the Founders of Rainbow Yoga, Gopala, and Angel Yaffa. Delivered by world-class faculty around the world.