Yoga for Kids!

3,234 words · about 14 minutes to read · this transcript may contain errors

(bright music) - Hi, I'm Sophia from Maa Yoga Studio, and thank you for joining our fun, yoga for kids, practice today. We welcome kids of all ages, and parents too. We're going to do a 30 minute yoga practice, using some breathing, movements, and a power down. And I've got some helpers here with me today.

I have Nova, and Christian. Let's get started with some breathing. This is a main part of yoga, that helps you start and end your day off. I like to call this balloon breathing, and we're gonna imagine our bellies are like a balloon.

And placing our hands onto our bellies, our middle fingers are going to be touching over our belly button, and as we breathe in through our nose, imagine that belly, like a balloon, slowly filling with air. And as you breathe out through your mouth, imagine your belly, like a balloon, slowly getting smaller. You ready, let's breathe in with our nose, and breathe out with your mouth, ah.

Let's try that one more time. Breathe in with your nose, and breathe out, ah. We're gonna try this two more times, but when we breathe in with our nose, let's hold for three seconds, are you ready? Let's see if you can fill up your belly with air.

Breathing in, and hold it for three seconds, and breath out, ah. Let's try that one more time, breathe in, and hold it for three seconds, and breathe out, ah. Rub your palms together, warming up your hands, and place your warm hands over top of your eyes, breathing in and out. And rub your palms again, warming up those hands, and this time placing those warm hands over top of your heart centre, and breathing in and out, feeling our bodies warming and giving you energy for your day.

We're gonna open our practice today, by touching our fingertips together, and touching our palms together, kind of creating a space, representing our heart, and let's place that onto our heart centre, and we can bow down to our hearts to open our practice today, and we're gonna say, my heart to your heart. Can you guys say that? My Heart to Your Heart.

Great, and let's slowly open up our hearts, and share it with the world. Do you feel energized and calm? Do you guys feel energized and calm? How about you at home?

The more you breathe through your day, the more calm and energized you stay. We're ready to start our day. It's time to warm up our bodies, so we're gonna sit in a comfortable seated position, crossing our legs, and our spines are nice and tall. There we go, hands on our knees, and we're gonna paint circles with our spine.

Let's start painting circles with that spine, to warm up our backs, giving our spine a nice stretch. Nice big circles. You might be lower down to the floor, or you might just stay up here, and that's okay. And let's go the other way, nice big circles we're painting with our spine.

Oh that feels so nice. All right, coming back to center, hands to the side, on the floor, and painting rainbows with our hands, one hand doing a side bend, the other hand doing another side bend. Wow look at those big arches and your rainbows. Nova, what colours are in in your rainbow?

All the colours, what about you Christian? All the colours, and how about you at home? What colours are you painting in your rainbows? Wow, those are beautiful colours, beautiful bright rainbows, and coming back to centre, hands on our knees, nice straight backs here.

Imagine you're an owl, and looking over one shoulder, and looking over the other shoulder. What sound does an owl make? Hoo! Hoo!

Giving our necks a nice stretch, good job Christian and Nova, giving your neck a nice stretch, looking over one shoulder, and then the other shoulder. All right, coming back to center, and let's stretch those legs out, and shake everything else, giving everything a shake, shake shake shake shake. And we're gonna warm up our bodies.

Start wiggling your toes. Wiggle those toes, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. And moving our ankles in circles, giving it a nice, gentle stretch, and go the other way. All right, making circles with our ankles.

And let's bop those knees, bop, bop, bop, bop bop bop bop bop, bop bop bop bop bop. And twinkling fingers, let's see those twinkling fingers, nice twinkling fingers, and bending those elbows. Get a nice bend, and a nice stretch in our arms here, bending those elbows. Good job, guys.

And rolling our shoulders, give those shoulders nice rolls. And let's go the other way, rolling them. That feels great. Warming up our shoulders, and blinking our eyes, blink blink blink blink, blink blink blink blink blink blink blink blink.

And fluttering those lips. Wow, that tickles. All right, breathing with our shoulders here, so as we breathe in we're gonna lift those shoulders up to our ears, breathing in. Lift, and breathe out, dropping those shoulders.

Breathe in, lift, and breathe out. And that's a great way to warm up your body. Once your bodies are all warmed up, it's time to do some fun yoga poses. You can bring your parents along too.

Let's play. Let's start on our hands and our knees, putting your hands underneath your shoulders, palms are flat on the floor, and your fingers are spread wide apart, toes touching the floor here. Imagine you're a cat, and as you breathe in through your nose, we're going to press our belly buttons towards the floor, lifting our head and our chest up, and our eyes are looking up, and we're happy cats.

What sound does a cat make? Meow. And breathing out, arch your back, looking down at your toes, arching that back, and angry cats, and breathe in, push that bellybutton to the floor, and lift your head and your eyes, and happy cats, meow. And breathe out, arch that back.

And looking down with your head and your eyes, back at your toes, angry cat. One more time, let's breathe in, looking up with your head and your chest, push that bellybutton to the floor, and meow. And breathe out, arch that back, and looking down and back at your toes. This time I want you to sit back onto your heels, where you're resting, and hands can be in front, or on your side, your head is resting on the floor here, and I want you to stay here for five breaths.

Imagine you're a rock. On your next inhale walk your hands to the front, and palms are flat, fingers spread apart here. Take a big inhale here, and exhale, lift your bottom up into the air, nice strong arms, nice and straight strong arms, and we're downward facing dog. Breathe in, lower down, lower down, and upward facing dog.

That's it, and breathe out, and downward facing dog, lift that bottom up into the air, there we go. And, breathe in, upward facing dog. Nice strong arms, breathe out, lift that bottom up into the air. Let's walk your dog here, so bending one knee, then the other knee.

There we go, walking that dog. All right, and now wagging your tail here, wag those tails, oh those are happy dogs. I can see all those happy dogs at home wagging their tails. Wag wag wag wag.

And walk your hands to your feet here. And I want you to stay down here. We're gonna be an elephant trunk, and just imagine we're loose, get everything loose. I want you to bend down Christian.

Everyone at home, we're just letting everything go. We can flutter our lips here. Nice and low, sweeping the floor. Sweep the floor with your hands, we're really loose, letting everything go.

That's it, moving your hips and your arms, and tickle those fingers up your body, very slowly, tickle those fingers, up, up, up. And your head is the last to come up, very slowly, taking a breath in and out here. Relax your hands, and mountain pose. And just focus on your breathing here for a few seconds.

Be still like a mountain. Let me see your still mountain Christian. Hands to your sides, and just focus on your breathing here. What do we see?

And what do we hear? We're at the top of a mountain. Let's see those big arms stretch. A sunrise, a sunrise, nice big arms looking up at the sun, and sun set, and dropping those arms, bending your knees, very slowly sweep your arms down.

Sun rise again, let's see that big sun, nice stretch of the arms, looking up at that sun, and sun sets, and back down. Let's tickle our fingers up our bodies, and the sun has set. It's dark outside. Let's see those twinkling stars in the sky.

Twinkle those fingers, twinkle stars. And let's try to reach for the stars. Let's grow taller and get onto our tippy toes here, and reach for those stars, twinkle twinkle, twinkle those stars, and coming back down onto your feet, if you were on your tippy toes. Imagine we're a star, let's stretch out our legs, and our arms, and let's see those stars, nice big bright stars with strong legs, and strong arms, nice and straight, there you go.

Let's see those stars, wow, those are beautiful stars, shooting stars, I've seen a shooting star. Let's do our shooting stars. Let's see those shooting stars. And one more time, oh great, that's fantastic, nice shooting stars.

And now it's time for us to get into a rocket ship, so we're going to get into our rocket ships, we're going to put our feet together, just like this, and let's see those hands, those palms touching, interlace those fingers. Keep those index fingers pointing up, and let's see the rockets getting built here. Stretch those arms up nice and straight, up into the air, over your head.

There you go, rocket ship, and three, two, one, blast off. Let's try that again, three, two, one, blast off. Oh awesome, coming out of our rocket ships, into the forest. Imagine we're a tree.

This requires some balancing. So, just to help us balance, we can use our fists. Put it between your feet, and that will give you how much space you want to be standing, okay? Let's start with lifting one of our feet, where our heel is gonna touch the other ankle, and your toes are just resting on the floor.

Now, some of us can stay here, or you can bring your foot up just a little bit higher, where it's just below your knee, and touching your calf. So you can stay here, or down here. You can find your own balance. Using our arms as branches, we can put our branches up here, here, or here.

So let's find your balance, so breathing in, and find your balance. Beautiful trees. Now let's try the other foot, let's put that foot down, let's try the other foot now. And put your heel onto your ankle, where your toes are resting there.

Or again, you can bring it up here, wherever your balance is. And let's do those branches, where are you gonna put those branches? This time I'm gonna keep mine up here, and we're trees. Let's breathe in, and out.

Beautiful trees. All right, and let's come out of our trees, and let's see that warm sun come up again, looking up at that sun, and the sun set. This time I want you to get onto your bellies, and we're gonna come on to our bellies. Stack your hands, and just rest your forehead or your cheek, and just stay here for about five breaths.

So just like this, you can just put your cheek or your forehead onto your hands. Imagine you're a cobra, let's set up for a cobra. Hands are gonna be under your shoulders, palms are flat on the floor, fingers spread wide apart, elbows are tucked in nice and close to your body, and toes touching the floor here.

Are you ready? Let's breathe in and lift your head and your chest, we're cobras. What sound does a cobra make? Ssssss.

And breathe out, lower down to the floor, nice and slow. Breathe in lifting, cobra ssssssss. And breathe out, lower down, and coming onto seated, onto our bottoms here. Imagine we're butterflies, so let's press our feet together, and let's see those butterfly wings.

Keep your feet together, let's see those butterfly wings. And our butterflies are flying away. ♪ Fly away, butterfly ♪ Fly away, butterfly Where did that butterfly go? Let's cross our legs. We'll take one hand, put it on the opposite knee, and then use the other hand, we're gonna look over our shoulder, where did that butterfly go?

We can say, bye bye butterfly. Doing a nice twist, let's look the other way. All right, looking the other way for that butterfly, bye bye butterfly. And coming back to center here, and lowering down onto our backs, getting ready for our bridge.

Just lay on your backs here, bending your knees. Your palms are flat on the floor, that's gonna help you lift up, and when we breathe in, we're gonna imagine we're building a bridge here, so breathing in, lift your bottom up, so push your seat and your heads into the floor, and lift your bottom, and breathe out, lower down. Really use your feet and your hands here to lift yourself up.

Breathe in, lift, nice high bridges, and breathe out, dropping that bridge, nice bridges, all right. And let's breathe in, this time we're gonna hold our bridge up nice and high, so the big boats can get underneath of us. And let's breathe in lift that bridge. All right, nice and high, and hold it for five seconds.

The boats are crossing underneath, you're pressing your feet and your hands into the floor, and exhale, breathing out, lowering that bridge down. And coming in to squeeze our knees here, and giving ourselves a nice little squeeze. And we're gonna do a bit of a roll here, I call it the rock and roll. And we're gonna rock and roll, and just thanking our bodies, and giving our backs a really nice stretch here, and coming on to our seats, sitting on our bottoms, crossing our legs.

Give yourself a nice hug here. Give yourselves a nice thank you hug, and thank yourself and your yoga practice today, your playful yoga practice, and did you have fun? Yeah? And how about you at home, did you have fun?

Well we hope you enjoyed the yoga practice, and were able to follow along with us, and had some fun doing it. A great way to end your day, or after a yoga practice, is to power down. We're going to do a fun breathing exercise, and a couple of stretches. So imagine you're a lion.

We're gonna kneel down onto the floor, and we're going to sit back onto our heels here, but we're gonna separate our knees a little bit. And you sit back onto your heels, that's it. Your big toes are touching back there. Get your big toes to touch back there.

Leaning forward but you're sitting on your heels. And hands are on the floor, fingers pointing towards your body, nice straight back. Lift your chest, and tilt your head up, breathe in, sticking that tongue out, let out a fierce roar. One more time.

Tilt that head up, breathe in, and stick the tongue out. That's a great way to release some energy. All right, and so now we're going to just stretch our legs out here. You can just give everything a wiggle.

Wiggle it all out, and imagine we're putting a baby to sleep. Bending one knee, grab onto your ankle and your knee with one hand, and let's rock that baby back and forth, cradling the baby to sleep. Nice gentle stretch in our legs here. The baby is falling asleep, back and forth, cradling the baby, and let's put that one back down and do the other side, and let's grab onto our ankle here and our knee, and cradling the other side, back and forth, cradling that baby to sleep.

That's it, that's a nice little way to stretch out your legs. And putting that back down, and we're going to imagine we're a sandwich, a sitting sandwich, so breathing in, we're gonna lift our hands up, and breathe out, bend forward. Breathing in, stretch those arms up, and breathe out, bend forward.

And breath in, up, stretch those arms up, and breathe out, and this time grab onto your feet, or your ankles or your calf, whatever you can hang onto, whatever you can hang onto, and just stay here for a few seconds, and we're a sitting sandwich guys. What kind of sandwich are you? A cheese sandwich.

What sandwich are you making at home? This is a great way to stretch out your legs and your arms. All right, good little bend here, we're gonna now slowly lower down to the floor, and get into our octopus, and imagine we're an octopus, so get your legs and your arms up into the sky, and just float around in water, and just let everything go.

Imagine you're body is an octopus here, floating in the water. Nice octopus. Wow. Look at everything, let go, be loose, and slowly lowering your legs and your arms down to your sides, and imagine you're melting into the floor, like ice cream on a hot day.

And this is time for our bodies to get into a relaxation. You can close your eyes here, relaxing your belly, relaxing your legs. And just imagine your yoga practice today, and all the breathing you did, and the movements. (soft music) Wiggling your toes, just start to wiggle those toes, and wiggle your fingers, and rolling your head from side to side, here.

Slowly waking up your body, bringing your knees to give them a nice hug, and you can just roll side to side here, just a little bit with your knees hugged into your body. And coming to one side, roll over to one side here, nice gentle roll, and you can lift yourself up into seated. And you can sit back, crossing your legs, and how do you feel?

Your body feel calm, and relaxed? Great. We're gonna close our practice off today, by touching our fingertips together, and our palms touching, creating that space, and going to our heart center, bowing down, thanking our bodies for today's playful yoga practice, ending off with, my heart to your heart, and slowly open up your hearts, and share it with the world.

Did you guys have fun? And how about you at home? Did you have fun? We hope that you were able to follow along with us, and had some fun doing it.

I'm Sophia, this is Nova, and Christian, and we hope to see you again. (bright music)