Children learn to experience relaxation through yoga

IT'S FRIDAY AFTERNOON. My 9-year old's week of school is a wrap. In the past six days, she's returned home from a holiday trip to Pennsylvania, aced a spelling test, learned how to add decimals, attended play practice at church and play practice at school, glided through her ice-skating lesson, finished her Christmas list and done all of her homework.
 
If there was ever a time for yoga, this is it.

At JW Tumbles in Ghent, where instructor Rita Woods teaches one of her series of Young Yogis Yoga classes, eight bubbly girls, in grades 3 to 5, arrange a rainbow of mats in a circle, like a flower. Woods gets the classes started by coaxing them into a cross-legged lotus position, backs straight, palms resting on their knees facing upward or pressed together at their hearts.

"Think about what's right for your body, what feels right in your own skin," she tells her yogis. "Maybe you're feeling strong - or feeling not so strong. Accept how you feel today."

She circles the room, pausing at each girl to rub Roxy, the speckled stuffed dog, up their spines to coax them to sit straighter.

She presses their shoulders back and down, to release tension. She places a seashell on each girl's ear, telling them to imitate the
sound of the ocean in their breathing.

"This is your time, on your mat, to let go of your day. You don't have to take a test, or answer a question or push in your chair," Woods said. "You just have to be."

Woods has been teaching yoga for four years, and practicing for 14. She started Young Yogis Yoga a year ago. Classes have been filling as fast as she can schedule them. She's developed a class that is partly calm, partly lively and always holds the attention of her girls.

Woods changes the mood with The Beach Boys "Surfin' USA," and moves the children through a series of classic yoga poses - downward-facing dog, cat, child's pose, yoga lunge and monkey.

Some girls seem serene, others, including my girl, Peyton, giggle as they topple over, and then try again.

"Be mindful of your body," Woods tells them. "Even if you can't get all the way down, it's OK. Someday you will.... Find that focus; find that concentration."

The class continues with Yoga Freeze Dance, where the yogis dance wildly and then freeze into a pose of Woods' choosing. Soon the girls, all strangers at the start of class, are holding hands and dancing in a circle of pure happiness.

Finally, they settle back onto their mats in the mummy pose, lying flat, hands at their sides attempting contemplation. Woods stops at each girl, dabbing a bit of aromatherapy oil on their heads as she gently elongates their necks and presses their shoulders down.

"Think of someone you love," Woods says. "Put a smile on your lips, and draw it close to your heart, and together we say, Namaste."

Afterward, I ask some of the girls what they like about yoga.

"I love it because it's so relaxing," said Carli Rappaport, 9, of Virginia Beach.

"It's really fun and relaxing," said Sarah Green, 11, of Norfolk.

"It stretched me, but it relaxed me," Peyton said.

All these children are craving relaxation?

"We're in this world where children are pushed beyond belief," Woods later explains, and then adds, "this generation of yogis needs to be able to take yoga off their mat."

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com