Yoga for Kids
| August 29, 2009 | Posted by monica under Education, Yoga |
A yoga and drama fusion for kids called BANY© (Bala Natya Yoga)
Bala Natya Yoga is a system which fuses together yoga poses, yoga assisted movement and element of theatre and drama. I developed it in the last couple of years, even using it as a subject for my doctorate. This Yoga, Theatre, Music and Dance Fusion for kids includes compiling meditational techniques like hand gestures, creative movement, mantra meditation, yoga postures, and soothing meditational or kirtana music to give a young pre schooler an opportunity to grow physically, mentally and emotionally to the best of his ability.
So, how did I come up with an idea for fusing Yoga with dance, and dramatics. I am an Ayurvedic Practitioner and all ancient holistic health systems propogate starting children on a holistic path as young as possible.
So, I encouraged my two year old son to do natural yoga movements that he ‘enjoyed’ like parvatasana, Lion pose, frog pose (mundaka asana), butterfly pose, warrior pose while telling him mythological stories and talking about mother earth, protecting the environment and how important it is to love and be kind to others, especially animals. I needed him to understand why we were lacto-vegetarians. I also showed him ‘meat’ section of the supermarket and told him it is for love for animals that we don’t like to eat other beings. Religion was something he wouldn’t have understood.
I started using Yoga poses, Classical Indian dance poses and hand Mudras (dance sign language) and elements of theatre and music to teach him about properties of water, the environment we live in, how plants grow and even recycling. If I want him to clean up – we do the clean up yoga dance!
It was after this, I began to observe that his basic motor co-ordination, language development and individual personality had surpassed other children his age and he was very good in languages and had a natural musical sense. By the time he was 3 years old, he was strong enough to lift objects that weighed as much as him and his prana shakti (life force) was strong due to meditational sounds, living in a nurturing environment of family, love and eating pure nutritious food as appropriate for an infant according to Ayurveda.
This is when I started to document everything I had done and called it the Bala Natya Yoga system – my Yoga, and Musical Theatre fusion. I also started helping other mothers at this point teaching them gentle massage techniques and gentle yoga exercises along with nutritional recipes and helping them encourage creativity of children with mantra to the sound of nursery rhymes, playing musical instruments that purify the environment and teaching good samskaras.
I also used this system with some teachers from a holistic school called, Braja Village School. They were visiting me and asked me to create a curriculum and a website they can use for their younger and even adolescent children. It was a very successful endeavour
Bala literally translates as ‘Strength’ and also can be taken as ‘child,
‘Natya’ here means creative learning and communication and for our study it means holistic meditation, and communicating good ‘samskaras’ (like of love for animals, fellow beings and environment) – and holistic education to the child creatively, naturally, through combined efforts of teacher and parent.
Yoga here means ‘yoga postures’ as well as yogic nutrition that strengthen the child and are helpful for his or her body constitution.
Footnote 2: According to Montessori method of infant education, “After they begin to walk, at approximately 16 months, children join the toddler community where basic motor coordination, independence and language development are fostered and individual personality is respected. Rather than a classroom, it is a nurturing social community where very young children experience their first contact with other children and learn to participate in a cooperative group.”
For more information – goto www.ayurvedayogatraining.com
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Wow, really loving this blog at the moment, I did a search and found it, so glad! I have just started with Yoga, and I like what I’m reading here! How similar is pilates to yoga though, just wondering?