August 2003

F-l-e-x-i-b-l-e Fun

marsha and kiva wenig
Marsha Wenig, president and founder of YogaKids, holds a pose with her son, Kiva. Teachers can do yoga right in their classroms to help kids relax, she says.

Seven-year-old Tommy Yemc enjoys moving fast when he’s playing soccer or pee-wee basketball. But as soon as yoga class starts, he likes to be calm. “I’ve learned a lot of exercise and poses and my legs are stronger,” says Tommy. His favorite pose? “The dog pose, because you get to bark a lot,” he explains.

Tommy isn’t alone in his fondness for yoga. Across the country, children big and small are bending, stretching, and saluting the sun.

“Yoga helps young children to become much more aware of how parts of their bodies move and helps them focus their attention,” says Marsha Wenig, president and founder of YogaKids, a yoga-education program based in Indiana.

Wenig and other yoga instructors who work with kids say yoga provides physical activity in a noncompetitive setting, increasing strength, balance, and flexibility, while helping children learn how to relax and quiet their minds.

At the Briarcliff Manor school district, in New York, yoga is part of the curriculum for the district’s 120 kindergarten students. There, the young students imitate dogs, cats, lions, butterflies, and snakes. At the end of the class they lie down on mats and close their eyes.

“Teachers can do [yoga] right in their classrooms,” says Wenig, “with something as simple as reaching arms up to the sun or out like branches of a tree. It’s just another way to help children relax.”

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