Instructor: Gayl Staver
Community: 9-10 year olds (and a parent), Home Setting, 60 minutes
Plan Creation Date: July 20, 2013
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Stillness
Props/Music Resources Required/Used: Anjali CD, Hoberman sphere, cotton balls, flowers from my garden and lavender spray.
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Introduction – to Yoga Calm, group rules and defining Stillness.
- Belly breathing – Hoberman Sphere demonstrated and passed around the circle to have each person follow their breath. Using cotton balls to practice breath control by themselves and then with partners seeing if they can blow the cotton ball through a hoop make with their partner’s arms.
- Sharing – Have members say what Stillness is for them. “Think of a time you were very still when you were watching a rabbit in your back yard or watching a bird on your deck. How did your body feel? What were you feeling? What were you thinking?”
Activate
- Volcano – to activate the body and teaching active exhaling through the nose. Explanation that this is a good pose to activate the body and mind as they prepare to take a test or to wake themselves up if they are sleepy or sluggish.
- Alignment – Demonstrating to group members the four squares on their hands and feet and encouragement to feel those four points of their hands and feet when on the ground. Having members stand up and listen in stillness as they feel their feet grounded into the floor.
- Tree – Having a student who started to demonstrate tree in the last exercise come to the front of the class and teach the tree pose. “Hold your tree and feel your feet and the stillness of being a tree”.
- Tree Circle – Members went into tree and pressed their hands into each others’ hand. One member suggested twisting the hands to increase the complexity of holding stillness.
- Warrior I and II – With emphasis on alignment and stillness the members held the warriors while thinking of their breathing and stillness.
- Chair – I explained how this pose increases heat in the body and encouraged the members to hold the pose, using their belly breathing.
Calm
- Child’s pose – I demonstrated the child pose with putting the head down on two stacked fists. “This pose is good to calm you down if you have too much energy for a situation or need to ground yourself. It is a good pose to do before starting a new task. You can calm yourself and be still as you mentally and physically prepare for a new task.”
- Chimes – I used the chime to demonstrate listening, calming the body and using the stillness within to be aware of their inside and outside world. Each member got to signal the group to stillness and then ring the chime and see how long they could hear it.
- Progressive relaxation – I had the members back on their backs and they used their belly breathing as I led them in a progressive relaxation.
- Compliments – I had each member give each other a compliment for their work in the session today.