2.19.2015

Teaching Yoga with Zephyr

I have been practicing yoga for almost 20 years now. I started when I moved to Boston from Miami (where I went to college) and was trying desperately as a  20-something to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was waiting tables and teaching in a preschool and was a little bit lost. One of the moms of my students was a yoga teacher and told me I should come take a class with her. My life was changed!  I did Rodney Yee videos, took classes when I could and started to transform my life as I knew it. 


Yoga got me through graduate school and when I became a first grade teacher in Coney Island in Brooklyn, it was then I realized how much kids just connected with yoga. I'm sure I had hopes and dreams of my future children practicing yoga with me. 

Fast forward to now, I have my beautiful, spirited little 3 yr old who has been born into the practice of yoga. We took mom & baby classes together and before he was in school, he accompanied me on many of the classes I was teaching. Now he is my partner in crime in teaching family yoga and parent/toddler yoga classes. 

While I can't count on him to always follow my directions- I have gotten him to understand that when I go to his school, he needs to be on his own mat and follow what the rest of his classmates are doing. When we teach family or parent/toddler yoga together, he can climb on me and partner with me and help me teach and run around and really do what he feels in the moment. 


Teaching with me has taught him to share. He actually lets other kids use the breathing ball- a HUGE step for a 3 year old! He helps me give out props, and he tells the younger kids what to do (sometimes not as nicely as I want, but still!) Sometimes he just won't waver in how he wants something to be done when I have other plans, but it's also teaching me to be patient. 

I am so incredibly lucky that I have a child who was born on this path. Yoga is as normal to him as playing with his rescue bots. 

While I work on being patient and Zephyr works on being a good listener, helper and sharer- together we are spreading the joy that the practice of yoga together can bring to families. As a parent, my heart is just so full. 

Sharing your own interests with your children and seeing them grow into them - cooking, gardening, sewing, painting, etc is just so much fun. What hobbies and interests do you and your child/ren share together? 

2 comments:

  1. This is a beautiful post and Zephyr is a lucky boy to have this in his life.

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  2. Thank you for sharing, lovely read, I can relate on all levels of this story :) momaste ;)

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