Brownies – yoga for little people

As part of our olympic patches, that we have been working toward for Brownies, there was an option to try yoga. Fortunatly we have a yoga teacher downstairs – I go to the adult classes – who very kindly agreed to take the children in a mini yoga lesson.

 

Here they are getting started, warming up.

 

 

 

I have to admit Gregor was a reluctant participate and at times was keen to join in and give it a try, but at others he obviously felt uncomfortable and just wanted to get up and run around. He did give it a fair shot, so I am very pleased with him.

All upside down.

 

 

I didn’t get a picture of distressed beetle (I was too busy chatting) but it was very funny, they were all on their backs with arms and legs in the arm, waving them about like, well, a distressed beetle.

Karen then introduced some yoga cards, where they could look though and pick which ones they wanted to try. I think Gregor liked picking the cards more than the poses.

 

Katrine choose hibernating bear, where you have to concentrate on you breathing.

 

Here are Sophia and Amelia, I didn’t catch what this pose was called.

 

Then came the relaxing part at the end, this was obviously harder for some that others. Katrine and Amelia looked like they could stay there forever.

 

This was the last activity that we needed to do for our patch:

 

Well, it actually 4 patches in a circle and very large so it won’t fit onto the sash, I will have  to put it on to the badge blanket instead. More sewing to add to the pile, I also have name labels to add onto the taekwondo uniforms.

 

A hug thank you to Karen for helping us with this – it was a great brownie meeting.

 

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My first ever yoga class

The title pretty much gives it away – I went to my first ever yoga class today! It is being held in my building in the apartment of the teacher – Karen. Most of the ladies there were complete beginners so Karen started from scratch, very necessary.

Here she is, trying to get me into the correct position for the downward dog – my shoulder blades need to be further down my back so I form a straighter line. Some of the moves were the same though but there was a lot more focus on the breathing here.

 

I have done Pilates, before so I was interested to see what the differences were. The biggest seems to be the breathing, in Pilates you breathe in though the nose and out though the mouth, whilst in yoga both in and out are though the nose. I tried my best but kept forgetting.

The hour and a half passed very quickly – I have the attention span of a butterfly  so can get very easily distracted but the reminder to keep thinking about the breathing seemed to stop my mind wandering away too badly. There were 5 minutes where you lie down flat on your back, with palms facing upwards about 45 degrees from your body and concentrate on your breathing which I was worried would give me the fidgets, but it was calming and I found it relaxing (I don’t normally find still in a busy room not doing anything relaxing) I even managed to not chat though the entire thing!

I do feel pretty good this afternoon, my neck is a bit stiff but it often is (I carry tension there, I can feel it when I get stressed my neck gets shorter) and I am more aware of my legs than usual. I suspect that they might be stiff tomorrow but I hope not. Though that might not be because of the yoga, I did go for a run this morning as well (all thee runs in week 1 completed).

I have to admit I enjoyed the tea and chat at the end – an hour and a half not being able to gibber away is a long time so I needed some chat time.