Yoga for kids stops future stress

As stress pulls your ears closer to your shoulders, and your neck becomes as stiff and brittle as rod iron; when that headache starts throbbing incessantly; when your nerves are dancing like Bo Jangles, look to the nearest child in you vicinity, blissfully unaware of the pressures of the world and wonder how you lost that innocent ease.

That, says Temmi Ungerman Sears, is an answer she can provide. She is the creator of Canada’s only comprehensive yoga classes for kids and says the trick to relieving stress is to stop it before it begins.

"Parents over-programme their kids" she says. "They have lessons and school and classes. They never get the chance to just play."

Ungerman Sears says as kids grow into adults they never learn how to deal with the stress that accumulates over the years. By the time they enter the job market and start living the fast-paced life of the ‘90s they don’t have the tools to deal with the pressure.

That’s where YogaBuds™, Ungerman Sears program, comes in.

By teaching kids, at an early age, that there are ways to relax and feel healthy, future health problems are avoided.

"I think today, a lot of kids’ down time, like playing video games, is actually up time," she said. "And the real health-inspiring tools now have gone by the wayside".

And, noted the mother of three, kids are natural yogis because they have not yet lost contact with their bodies.

"They are like flowers opening and budding," she said. "That’s how the name YogaBuds™ came about."

The program offered to the kids takes them through some very basic and simple moves and stretches that limber up their muscles and relaxes their bodies.

"We do different warm up games and they learn from the games." She said. "It’s non- competitive. They don’t compete with each other. We, in the west, always want to prove to kids that there are immediate rewards for their efforts. In the East it is the journey that is important. I think kids like that because they can just have fun. They always succeed. They can never do something wrong in yoga class."

After the workout the kids then do a 10-minute relaxation component.

"It’s their favourite part of the program." Ungerman Sears said. "They lie on their backs, sometimes with their feet up against the wall in an inverted position, with little eye pillows on. It amazed me because it really shows the stress they have. We don’t really know the stress level, say from street proofing out kids."

Ungerman Sears went to Forest Hill Collegiate before completing her masters of Fine Arts at York University. She received most of her yoga training while doing a Masters degree in Expressive Therapies in Cambridge Massachusetts in the States, and has just returned from a month-long seminar in Pune, India. While there, she studied under the renowned Iyengar, the 78-year-old man responsible for introducing yoga to the western world.

"It was intensive and pretty amazing," she said of the experience.