Coming Together in Our Care for Children: 2015 Summer Intensive Highlights
Our annual Summer Intensive – a training that encompasses our three basic Yoga Calm curriculum courses – is our favorite of the year. Not only do we get to spend time at relaxing studios and beautiful retreats such as Still Meadow here in Oregon; we get to meet and...
Meet Our Youngest Certified Youth Instructor, Aderyn McLean
When Kelly McLean was diagnosed five years ago with ankylosing spondylitis, an autoimmune form of arthritis, she followed her doctor’s recommendation and took up yoga. It helped her so much that she decided to become a yoga instructor and eventually earned her...
Receiving Your Students’ Gratitude – and Recognizing All the Good Work You Do
There’s nothing sweeter than a heartfelt thank you note written by a child. As teachers and counselors, we’re often so caught up in the day-to-day rush to educate and help our students, we don’t have time to recognize the impact of the good work we’re doing. While we...
Native American Mindfulness: All My Relations
“I’ve noticed that many people say that everything is connected,” said psychologist Leslie Gray at a recent workshop on Shamanic Counseling - a method of adapting indigenous healing practices to modern urban circumstances in an effective and vital way. “But they don’t...
Teaching Yoga to Preschoolers: What Works Best?
It was like magic. In a room crowded with more than 100 families, music blaring, pizza and popcorn booths scattered throughout, invariably, the kids would find us at the 50th anniversary celebration of Portland’s Head Start program. Our booth was simple, unadorned,...
Exercise and the Brain: How Fitness Improves Academic Performance
Guest post by kids’ yoga teacher Colleen Cash We all know it’s important for kids to move. Dozens of noncommunicable diseases, from heart disease to diabetes, are caused by inactivity, and lifelong activity patterns are often set by childhood habits. According to the...
TV, Teens and Trauma: 5 Tips for Taking Control
Though this year's Screen Free Week is now a fading memory, the reason for such events persists It’s tough to unplug from our electronic entertainment, isn’t it? Though Lynea and I watch less TV than the average American, even we “had” to watch American Idol,...
Social Skills Trump Technology
It’s easy – and tempting! – to think that technology can solve all of our problems and challenges. But some fascinating research to be presented at this month’s Annual Conference of the International Communication Association provides a good reminder that tech alone...
Just 5 Deep Breaths: How Yoga Can Help Kids (and You!) Shift from the Stress Response to the Rest Response
Guest post by kids' yoga teacher Colleen Cash Picture this: You’re zipping down the road, singing along with your favorite tune, when a car cuts you off. In that split second, how does your body respond? Most drivers would be able to identify the breath response: A...
Yoga & Exercise as Medicine
It looks like schools aren’t the only place where exercise is getting the short shrift these days. According to new research out of Oregon State University, it’s largely absent from the medical school curriculum, too. Just over half of US medical schools offer no...
Native American Mindfulness: Reciprocity
Several years back, a writer for one of our local papers complained about school teachers getting graduate credit to teach yoga to their students. These courses, she mocked, should be listed in the Education Department catalog next to basket weaving. My thought?...
Exercising the Body = Exercising the Brain
Can you imagine a school where kids show up dressed for PE? Where physical exercise is just as important as academics – and academic scores go up as a result? That's the ideal world brain scientist John Medina described to the 3000 plus gathered for the kick-off...