Posted October 20, 2003

Yoga puts children in touch

By Daniel de Vise

yogakids instructor ally peer ben-ezzer reading to her students
Enjoying Class: Having a good time in a yoga class for children ages 3-5 is Justin Rossiter, left, being read to by instructor Ally Peer Ben-Ezzer, right, in Davie. Bob Eighmie/Herald Staff

Some disciples in Elizabeth Bonet’s morning yoga class stretch-stretch-stretched their hands down toward their feet, following her lead as best they could.

But one inattentive pupil inflated a balloon. Another shook a maraca. A third switched the classroom lights on and off at random.

This is yoga for the Elmo generation.

South Florida society is coming to view yoga as a meaningful -- not to mention cute -- activity for children as young as 2. Mothers are returning to yoga classes with newborns as soon as six weeks after delivery. And while such classes may lack the pin-drop om tranquility of classic adult yoga, they certainly hew as close to the true spirit of yoga as, say, your typical South Beach “hot yoga” sweat-a-thon.

“This is a gentle parenting space,” Bonet announced at the start of a recent class at the Jim Ward Community Center in Plantation. “So please don’t force your child to do yoga. They will participate if they want to.”

There was little danger of such harsh measures among these eight doting mothers and 13 children, who ranged in age from a few months to 4 years.

But yoga per se was not on everyone’s agenda. One young student chased a tennis ball around the room. Two drank from sippy cups, one breast-fed, one laughed as his mother tickled him with her hair. One older boy in a Spiderman shirt attempted an arching “downward dog” stretch on all fours alongside his mother.

Toward the end of the one-hour session, Bonet reserved some time to focus on the children. She read From Head to Toe by children’s author Eric Carle, one of several dozen books that adapt well to children’s yoga.

ally peer ben-ezzer runs a yogakids class
Group Lesson: Yoga instructor Ally Peer Ben-Ezzer runs class at the Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies. Bob Eighmie/Herald Staff

“I am a cat and I arch my back,” Bonet read aloud. “Can you arch your back?”

And, just like that, a half-dozen toddlers assumed the cat pose. After several more animal poses, Bonet and her students relaxed. She turned to the mothers.

“Take a moment,” she said, “just to feel how wonderful it is to have children.”

Laughter.

The class is not always calm, but the mothers say it is irreplaceable. Where else will they find time to exercise without interruption while their children play happily in a child-proofed room?

“For me, it’s really my only vehicle for stress reduction. When you’re home full time with two children, you need a vehicle for stress reduction,” said Julie Davis of Hollywood, attending the class with children Amanda, 3, and Cristian, 6 months.

“I have some yoga videos. I have all the best intentions of doing it at home,” Davis said. “But it’s very, very difficult.”

Marsha Wenig of Michigan City, Ind., is widely regarded as the guru of children’s yoga. She has been honing her techniques for 20 years, reworking traditional yoga poses to make them more kid-friendly, recording YogaKids videotapes, amassing a list of books with themes that lend themselves to yoga lessons.

“Yoga for children is very, very different than yoga for adults,” she said in a telephone interview. “You have to be completely creative. You have to hold that sense of authority in the class without being a dictator. And that takes a very delicate balance. You either have a knack with children or you do not.”

At the Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies in Davie on a recent afternoon, eight children ages 3 and 4 put Wenig’s method through its paces.

“We’re going to take a deep breath in. Ahhhh,” said instructor Ally Peer Ben-Ezzer, who studied under Wenig. Here was a breathing exercise just like that used in adult yoga, but with an extra prop: tiny silk flowers clasped between tiny palms, a reward for the deep breaths.

a student raises her hand in a yogakids class Question: Raising her hand in yoga class is Victoria Caberera, 4. Bob Eighmie/Herald Staff

Later, imitating the movements of an elephant’s trunk, the children swung their arms high over their heads. A series of seated leg stretches became an imaginary exercise in kneading pizza dough. For the “child’s pose,” a seated posture with the forehead touching the floor, the students pretended to be kernels of corn about to pop.

The children in this Nova Southeastern University class are considered old enough to do yoga on their own, with no parents present. Most of them joined in during this afternoon class, their mats forming a circle around the teacher. Ben-Ezzer adopted the role of stern teacher only when necessary, as when an attempt to imitate stomping elephants got a bit out of hand.

“Especially when you talk about children this young, they have their impulses,” Ben-Ezzer said. “And you can fight them, you can tell them to stop, or you can go with the flow. I choose to go with the flow.”

Teaching yoga to children so young is not easy, and yoga instructors say they have seen colleagues driven out of the field for the comparative simplicity of traditional adult yoga.

“Most of the teachers that I know that have started out teaching kids have quit, and that’s because it’s a hard group to teach,” said Debra Geymayr, who teaches children of all ages at Prenatal Plus Yoga in Coral Gables.

Geymayr prides herself on continuity: she teaches yoga for pregnant women, then invites them back to baby yoga classes that begin six weeks after delivery. The children can continue studying as long as they wish.

“We do infant massage, we do poses with the babies, we do poses with mom to help her regain her abdominal center,” Geymayr said. “And we sing and we dance. We just have a great time.”

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