Instructor: Bijoli Biswas
Class: Morning Focus Group, 30 Minutes
Community: Mixed ages, Grades 1-5
Plan Creation Date: April 15, 2010
Yoga Calm Principle/Lesson Goal: Grounding
Lesson Plan:
Calm
• Belly Breathing: Lying on backs, breath into belly, focus on breath, eyes closed to calm and prepare for class. Place flat stone on belly and notice the movement up and down. Imagine being part of the rock, solid and part of the earth.
Activate
• Cat Cow: (1 minute) On all fours with hands under shoulders and knees under hips. Breathe out, lower head and tuck tail, (rounding up like a cat’s). Breathe in, look up, and lift head and collarbones. (Belly drops like a cow’s.) Inhalations and exhalations with cat cow motions will be of equal duration.
• Back Breathing: (5 minutes) With partner one child takes child pose, other kneels alongside and places their hands on the first student’s low back. Feel partner’s hands rise and fall like waves in an ocean as the student breathes in and out. Continue for several breaths, partner moves hands slowly to mid-back (repeat), then upper back. Switch roles.
• Sun Salutation: (3 times with different leaders) Focus on activation and strength. Work on alignment principles – bear paw hands, feet strongly rooted in standing positions. Pause in Mountain to activate and ground (& positive self-talk statements); Pause in lunge and then upward lunge activate and ground (& positive self-talk statements); Pause in Plank (& positive self-talk statements).
• Tree Challenge I: Two students stand and face each other, one standing in tree, the other challenging their balance by jumping up and down, waving moving side to side.
• Tree Challenge II: Two students stand facing each other, right legs up in tree, right hands touching, press hands towards each other for support, the challenge, back and forth, out to sides, and so on.
Calm
• Relaxation: Lie on back, eyes closed, breath like waves, slow and rhythmic. (1 minute calm card) Remember a time when you worked very hard – maybe you ran a race, played in a game, or helped carry some heavy objects for a friend. Remember how tired your body was. Now think about how good it felt to lie on the ground and rest. Your body was so tired from the work that it melted into the ground. Feel it melt like that now.