It’s tough even for dedicated adult yogis to maintain a home yoga practice, so it can feel near impossible to cultivate mindfulness along with (rather than in spite of) your kiddos. Check out these four smart and silly resources, and see if they might invite a little more sunshine and a little more breath into you and your child’s day. Since the following album, subscription, app, and book were all created by experts, don’t worry about having to prepare anything or needing to be well-versed in mindfulness or yoga: it has all been done for you.
Okay, do you know about Kira Willey? Because I want you to know about Kira Willey. A longtime music teacher, she now leads school yoga assemblies, trains other teachers on the importance of music in the yoga classroom, and creates beautiful, soothing yoga albums like this. Dance for the Sun is full of easy directive songs (that is, they explicitly tell the listener what to do) that preschoolers or kindergarteners could execute independently. It would be a sweet experience to practice these short songs while holding your baby or toddler, and you won’t get sick of Kira’s lovely voice, even if your smalls ask to hear her 8 million times (and they totally will).
In the spirit of transparency (and also bragging), I helped make this sparkling rainbow of a subscription service. For a moderate monthly fee, families receive three new activities via email and (my favorite part!) a Let’s Boogie Box via snail mail every 30 days. The Boogie Boxes hold crafts, activity guides, worksheets and bonus activities, and the subscription includes access to an online community of families who want what you want: more meaningful movement in your home.
Young children are about as dedicated to their tablets as they are to Moana or slime. My favorite component of this free preschool/early elementary app is that the 12 animal characters have names that hint at their Sanskrit labels: a snake named Bujha (bhujangasana means cobra pose), Audo the dog (adho muka svanasana= downward facing dog), and a monkey named Hani (the Hindu deity Hanuman, who is referenced in yoga, was a monkey). Though it certainly could occupy the whole family, Super Stretch’s user-friendliness makes it a great compromise for when the kids want screen time but you’d rather they play. Everybody wins.
There are quite a few kids yoga how-to books that claim to be accessible to parents, but none achieves that goal better than Itsy Bitsy Yoga. Divided into easily digestible lessons sorted by desired outcome (tantrum taming, quiet time, balance building) and chuck full of demonstration photos and best practice tips, there is simply no better book to have on your shelf if you want yoga to be part of your bambino’s routine.
If you try any of these at home or have favorite mindfulness resources already, I would love to hear about it! Ciao for now, yogis big and small.
Before last fall, I had never heard of yoga festivals. Travel has been the glimmering highlight of the first half of my 20s, but the second I had a few hundred bucks I would always spring to get another stamp in my passport, with little interest in domestic travel. But then I heard about these rad weekend events all over the US (and abroad) that featured various yoga disciplines, lectures on mindfulness, spiritual insights, and ridiculously fun workshops like slinky 101, muddy slackline, and fire juggling. I was all in.
True to form, I immediately decided to make yoga festivals part of my job. Obsession blossomed and I researched about 84 billion festivals before settling on a handful to apply to. It took a hot second because, realistically, there is a whole bunch of nasty shit that goes down at yoga festivals: gender essentialism (my identity does not hinge on my womb, and to insist so excludes trans women), cultural appropriation (drumming and howling around a fire probably does not constitute a “Navajo fire ceremony”) and unethical hiring practice (it is never okay to have to pay for a job application). So I scoured the web for festivals that aligned with my values, were accessible for a Chicago-based non-driver, and were brimming with mischief. I got what I ordered: acceptance to teach at my top two choices in summer 2018.
My first stop is PlayThink Movement and Arts Festival in Berea, Kentucky this June. You’d be hard pressed to find a more whimsical way to spend your weekend: playshops include Intro to Yo-Yos, Beginner Whip Cracking, and pole dancing. It’s ethical (I’m thrilled that “consent and boundaries” and “queer sphere” are on the schedule), family friendly (I’m teaching storytime yoga and am jealous of the kiddies who get to participate in Bubble Wand Creation), and located in the decidedly romantic sounding Appalachian foothills. I will confess that I splurged on a tent and sleeping bag immediately after being booked, a full seven months before the event.
And I want to tell you about Breathe Slackline and Discover Festival. It’s in Spencer, Indiana in July, and I’ll be teaching storytime yoga there also. Did you know that slacklining is a thing? I hadn’t the foggiest. There are four slackline parks (?!?) at Breathe, and there’s slackline yoga and something called slacklibrium, which is a mystery to me. I have had a truly shocking number of jobs throughout my first decade in the workforce, but let me tell you that my acceptance letter to Breathe was the single sweetest, most specific job offer on which I have ever laid eyes. I haven’t met one other soul involved in the fest yet, but I could not be more eager. Also I’m always threatening to run away and live in a yurt with my guinea pig when I get crabby, and I’m just delighted that Breathe has yurts.
This is a lucky, wonderful start. Next year I’m gonna gamble big and apply to yoga festivals abroad. New Zealand and Israel both have events simply called International Yoga Festival, both of which are family friendly. New Zealand’s program strikes me as more playful, and Israel’s softer. But what I really want down in the bottom of my bare soul is Lamu Yoga Festival in Kenya. At first this fest struck me as hecking sketch. It takes place on a primarily Muslim and primarily Swahili island, and I was concerned it might be a bunch of white people taking over for a weekend, making a lot of noise and leaving a lot of trash. But I was so pleased to be wrong. Rather than the camping and food stalls standard at yoga festivals, LYF’s website lists local hotels, inns, and restaurants to support. A number of Kenyan and Ethiopian teachers are in positions of leadership, and a portion of everyone’s ticket goes to funding free yoga for adults and children in the surrounding community. The website also lists several ways attendees can show some love to the island of Lamu, in direct dollars rather than voluntourism.
Those are my plans and dreams for now, and I hope to make yoga festivals part of my teaching practice for the remainder of my 20s. Is there a yoga festival you are dreaming of or have already enjoyed? Splat a comment below. Ciao for now, yogis big and small.
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