Since the beginning of this term I've been teaching yoga to the Year 11 girls at Sacred Heart here in Hamilton East. I get to do this because it fits in well with their PE progamme where they look at managing stress and alternative wellness practices. And I also get to be there because this progressive and forward thinking Christian Catholic school is broad minded about the girls education giving them a wide exposure to many things - awesome. Eilleen Stobie heads the Year 11 PE department and she manages to install me into their school week teaching 12 classes per week for about a month.
My objective is to give the girls a snap shot of yoga. I give them a vocabularly of movement, breath work, rest, contemplation, meditation and sound (we 'OM'). The 'contemplation' part is getting them to watch themselves - or asking them to stop a while to enquire how they feel after an asana, to watch what they're thinking. Relating this to stress I hoped they could see that sometimes all they needed was to stop and to listen and to take a long breath out...as well as to touch their toes regularly....
The asana based work was your basic repertoire of dog, cat, snake, tree, mountain, triangle all good earthy/animal stuff and plenty of other stretches, twists, balances and extensions. Hamstrings tight or what? Poor things! Lots of forward bends and plenty of time in the Childs pose. They mostly do all of this with good humour (hysterics sometimes) especially taking on regular rounds of sun salutes as best they could - kind of. Have you ever tried to bestow the virtue of disciplined physical hardship to a bunch of fun loving 15 year olds? Tough. If you fun-loving 15 year olds are reading this and I hope you are, you did well, real well. You were fantasic. And I'm proud of you.
I would say though the thing they loved must was truely resting and doing such things as sending positive affirmations to friends, sitting cross legged hands respectfully in prayer position and earnestly expressing 'Namaste'. I loved their listening and questions about the philosophy and meanings beyind yoga. When they have so many things that hall their attention away from themselves, that they could learn to listen to their own bodies wisdom and the sense of peace and quiet they can acheive by meditating and feeling gratitude for simple things, is the best thing.
So anyway you girls who are reading this, this is for you.... If you would like to continue on with a yoga practice of your own, I'd like to announce a weekly one hour class in the church hall I use for yoga in Hamilton East. Look at the days and times available and name your preference:
Tuesday 3:30 - 4:30
Wednesday 3:30 - 4:30
Friday 3:15 - 4:15
Cost options: $7 per class. $25 for 4 weeks. $40 for 8 weeks.
Please email me back: katie@sunsalute.co.nz or text me 021 1207 131 with your day preferences. Once I have responses we'll choose the most popular option, I'll contact you all and we'll get started.
NAMASTE
Katie
