Chair Yoga for Kids

I always thought of chair yoga as therapy for people with lower back pain or seniors and never expressed any interest until a yoga teacher I know (thank you Ann Marie) put up some chair yoga exercises on her social media.

Type the 'Chair Yoga for...' into Google Search Engine and you will get Chair Yoga for office workers, students, athletes and schools.

I mentioned this before, I am a great believer in using props during my classes to help kids engage and stay focused. I have used them from the start and believe they bring great creativity and imagination to classes. By using a chair as a prop we added something completely new to our class, new way of doing poses we know so well. The eagle pose can be done while standing, lying down and now sitting up.

When we are doing Zoom classes, kids are missing out on mindfulness of senses (smell, touch, feel) but seem to be expressing their emotions with ease and responding brilliantly to mindfulness of sounds (Tibetan bowl was a real hit and I am even thinking about sourcing Tibetan chimes). So Zoom is not all doom and gloom.

So what can a simple chair do for a child. It can keep the child focused to start with. It will then allow child to recreate so many kids yoga poses and use their imagination as they practice yoga. We are tried gentle chair yoga stretches with younger kids this week and did a full chair yoga flow with older kids. We added a theme to our class 'Appreciation of Forest' and the chair became part of Rainforest yoga flow.

When it was time for shavasana at the end of the class, some of the older students chose sitting for their meditation which gives them an option to practise it in any situation.

We can always find a chair at home, in the office, there is even a bench in the park. So here is my pinky promise (my daughter only accepts these at the moment). I promise to practice Chair Yoga myself to improve my flexibility and provide breaks during the day that we all need. I hope you might give Chair Yoga a try!

I. believe in using props during my classes to help kids engage and stay focused