Instructor: Vincent Hurtado
Community: High School Ages, School Setting
Plan Creation Date: November 1, 2015
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Stillness
Lesson Plan:
Calm
- Belly Breathing – 10 breaths with the Hoberman sphere, keep your body still and listen to breaths in your body.
- Pulse Count – Become quiet and still in your body and listen to your pulse as if it were the beat of a drum.
Activate
- Child Pose – Kneel on the floor. With the tops of the feet on the floor, touch the big toes together and sit back on the heels. Stack hands on the floor to make a pillow. Relax your neck, hips, and back. Let your head be heavy. Breathe into your back and let it puff up like a parachute.
- Tree – Stand with legs and feet together. Shift weight onto the left foot. Slowly bend right knee and draw the right foot up, placing the sole as high as possible on the inner leg without strain. Activate your body and press standing leg down, rooting yourself like a tree to the earth. Press palms together in front of heart to help with balance. Then stretch arms and head up like branches to the sky while rooting your standing leg. Try to imagine yourself bracing yourself against any wind. Focusing on stillness. Repeat on the other side.
- Eagle – From standing go into Chair. Lift your left leg off the floor and cross your left knee tightly over right knee. Hug your foot into your shin or hook the toes of your left foot behind your right calf. Spread your arms like wings and take them overhead. Bend your elbows and hook your left elbow under your right elbow in front of your heart. Point your thumbs toward your nose and grab your right palm with your left hand or place backs of hands together. Lift elbows up and stretch your fingers toward the sky. Picture yourself as an eagle that is maintaining stillness on a tree branch up above the earth. Repeat on the other side.
- Dancer Modified – Stand with feet hip-width apart. Shift weight to the right foot. Lift the left foot behind and hold it with left hand. When in balance raise the right arm. Look straight ahead. Focus on a spot on the wall to help with balance. Be aware of how your focus on one spot in the room helps maintain your focus and stillness. Repeat on the other side.
- Volcano Breath – Stand with feet hip-width apart. Place palms together at the heart. Take a slow deep breath through the nose and pause when the lungs are full. Hold the pause and bring the arms over the head. Exhale and slowly “explode the volcano”, moving arms out the side and then back together at heart. Do for 5 breaths.
Calm
- Relaxation – Loving-Kindness guided meditation from Learning to Breathe page 92.