Autumn Pose: AIRPLANE ✈️

Picture 1: Children standing in a soccer field surrounded by Fall trees and leaves on the ground. The three children on the left are balancing on one foot with arms outstretched and lifted leg behind them. Two children stand talking to once another on the right side of the picture. Children are wearing various coloured outfits.

Airplane Pose (Warrior III / Virabhadrasana III)

Did you know that November is Aviation History Month? It’s estimated that there are 39,000 planes currently on the planet, and some 150,000 throughout history - that’s a lot of planes! It’s incredible to think that over a century ago, in 1903, the first airplane took flight - so wild! We’ve certainly come a long way since it’s inception by the Wright Brothers, but it still blows my mind to think that somewhere along the way, we learned how to fly. It started as an idea, and eventually became reality. Humans - our bodies and our minds - amaze me each and every day. And though we won’t be jet-setting any time soon, we can use our Yoga Airplane to take us to faraway places, whenever we have the urge for a change of scenery, and that is pretty amazing in itself!

Picture 2: Two children are standing in a field surrounded by Fall trees and leaves on the ground. Both children are wearing various colours of warm clothing. Their arms are outstretched. The child on the left is balancing on one foot, with the toes of their other foot behind them. The child on the right is in the same position, though their back knee is bent and foot is raised off the ground.

We are exploring the element of AIR in the Virtual Studio to kick off the month of November, so be on the lookout for those!

There’s something so magical about being in the air. There’s the anticipation of going somewhere new and different. There’s the physical aspect of defying gravity, a little cheeky moment of what feels a little like rebellion. And there’s the gift of fresh perspective that it brings as you slowly see your familiar home shrink before your eyes. I feel like our yoga practice can also offer us these teachings, maybe in a different way, but our beautiful imaginations can certainly make it happen!

Picture 3: A parent and child are standing in a field surrounded by green trees in Summer clothing. They are holding hands and balancing on one foot, with their lifted leg outstretched behind them. There is another child sitting on the grass and another adult standing in the background.

There are a few different ways to turn our bodies into airplanes - truly, the sky is the limit - but for the sake of simplicity, we’ll focus on virabhadrasana III today! What I love about this pose is that it’s challenging but accessible, and it’s always a fun pose to do together (as in Picture 3) as a family pose. It’s a shape that requires our entire attention, especially when supporting others, but once you find the sweet spot, you really are flying!

Benefits
This pose has a lot going on, even with it’s fairly staright-forward shape. Airplane pose can help to strengthen our ankles, legs abdominals, shoulders, and back; find our balance, stability, and grounding; improve posture; and offers a sense of weightlessness through focus, steady breathing, and determination. It also welcomes a sense of humility, as it’s absolutely okay when we tip over or fall out of the pose, we don’t have far to find our feet back on the ground, and we can get right back into it as we choose. Try the pose with your eyes closed for an extra challenge - that’s a real teaching moment of noticing your body and breath, or in supporting and relying on others when we support one another in it.

Do it!
To take off and catch some air, start in mountain pose or tadasana, standing tall and strong with feet about hip-width distance apart. Reach your arms out wide like a big letter T, and gently lift one foot behind you, tipping the upper half of the body forward as you do so. Allow the back leg and upper body to act as a teeter-totter; as your back leg lifts, your upper body leans further forward, and vice versa. Try it while holding hands or pressing palms together with a loved one for more support, or using a wall or table beside you. It’s important to feel strong throughout the body - I’ve never seen a floppy airplane, and I think we know why! Sometimes we roll our wrists to act as “propellors,” and we make a silly motor sound as we “take-off and fly,” be sure to make it feel as airplane-like as you want to! As shown in picture 2, you can keep your back toes on the ground like the child on the left, or lift them like the child on the right, depending on how you’re feeling that day. As mentioned above, try it with your eyes closed for an added challenge - remember, it’s okay to tip over!

Have Fun!
Airplanes have to be steady to navigate the airways, they balance through the clouds, and they move FAST (passenger planes go up to 500 knots or 930 km/h!) even though it seems quite slow once you’re in the air. So whether you’re jet-setting around the world, traveling across the country, or to an imaginative land far, far away, be sure to include your whole family on your trip! Feel free to tag us in any adventure photos you take on instagram:@appleseedyoga and facebook: @appleseedyogacommunity, and don’t forget to #appleseedyoga!

Happy and safe travels,

Sara

Pose of the Summer: FROG 🐸

Frog Pose (Malasana/Mandukasana)

The nature documentaries in our home are getting a little out of hand. My son walks into a room nowadays and says: "Do you know how many king cobra bites kill people in India every year?" or “Mom, do you know how many lions it takes to take down a cape buffalo?”

We’ve seen docs on every big cat imaginable, elephants, bears, penguins, ants, moose, kangaroos, wolves, and we watched one recently on frogs. Until the last few docs, my partner would watch with the boys so I could steal away for a little work time, but during FROGS I couldn’t leave. Ten minutes in I HAD to pause it to get my class plan book. The content was just so rich! Frogs climbing trees with tadpoles on their backs (hello family yoga challenge!), frogs digging channels through the mud to save their tadpoles, frogs putting on sunscreen (not kidding), frogs falling off mountains like a rubber ball to avoid a predator, did you know certain species of frogs wave? Yes - to their potential mates!

You can expect FROG yoga ASAP in the Virtual Studio, if you hadn’t guessed yet.

All this came about because my oldest caught his first frog the other week - something small that made me proud. And while this pandemic has been excruciating at times, I’m so thankful we are finding more of those pauses where we’re actually quiet enough and present enough to find something like a little hopper. Because that’s what childhood and parenthood is about.

The two frog poses we talk about here: Malasana (pictured above) and Mandukasana (pictured left and below) are brilliant. We also have a version I saw from Christine Ruffolo called “Diving Frog” for if you have a slippery floor in your home. And you must try them as your adult self - on the light side, they’re amusing and silly, and yet on the other end, extremely challenging!

Benefits
The frog poses (malasana and mandukasana) are great for strengthening the back, hips, knees, and ankles, improving digestion, relieving stress and anxiety, and enhancing kidney and liver functioning. Plus more!

Do it!
The malasana version of frog is probably one of the most natural poses for kids and adults alike. For malasana (top picture), bend your knees and bring your hips down, coming into a squat. Adjust the width of your feet as necessary. You can come up on toes or keep your heels on the ground, whatever feels best! We like to bring our hands to the floor in front, or you can have them in prayer. Don’t forget to stick out your tongue for some flies!

For mandukasana, come into hands and knees with your hips over knees to start (pictures above and to right). Walk your knees each out from the centre line of your body inch by inch until you’ve reached a sweet spot! Keep your hands under your shoulders, or bring your elbows and forearms to the floor. Play a little with your hips moving behind and ahead of your knees, or side to side.

Have Fun!
Frogs love to sit incredibly still, can you do that? Can you sit still for longer than your parent?! Is your frog a giant bullfrog in Africa living in a muddy bog? Or are you a tiny thumb-nail sized Radcliffe's Night Frog hopping up a tree in India? Maybe you’re doing frog pushups to get rehydrated in Peru, or sinking down into the mud in Canada to freeze for the winter. Make sure you include your whole family, and be sure to tag us in any photos you take on instagram:@appleseedyoga and facebook: @appleseedyogacommunity, and don’t forget to #appleseedyoga!

Here's to a slow, froggy summer,

Megan

Corona, Kids & Screens

So many parents I know feel like they’re drowning in screens right now, myself included. Maybe it feels like a never-ending battle, or perhaps you’ve completely relented in the face of this extraordinary time. I’m here to say that either way, no matter what’s going on, we will get through this.

How does a conscious parent navigate this sea of media and screen usage with small kids? My solution is to have an incredibly compassionate view, and still remember to pursue presence with your child.

At the onset of COVID-19, our kids (ages 5&3) went from having 30-60 minutes of screen-time a week to that per day. And now it’s more like 90 minutes a day on average, although we’ve been able to cut it down over the last few weeks. My philosophy on screens is that my kids are still incredibly young, and have their entire lives to immerse themselves in screens. During these early years, it’s my hope to instill in them a lack of dependence on screens and a greater dependence on the outdoors, and real life connection. This is rooted in many things, but a big part of it has to do with screens’ natural stress-induction, and nature’s natural stress-relief. In an incredibly over-stressful world, I want my kids to have a deep-ingrained antidote to the harming effects of stress. The best antidote out there, I believe, is connection to nature, which includes the outdoors and their own bodies.

While I strive and maintain pretty strict boundaries around screen-time in our home, the most important thing right now is that we let go of our screen-time shame. Shame for anything on behalf of anyone, parents or children should be forsaken. Glennon Doyle shared about this early on in the pandemic - during such a volatile time as this, we need to simply survive, get done some work, and end up smiling at the end of the day. If MANY hours of screen time for your family is what achieves this, let it be. No shame for it. It won’t be like this forever.

And if you’ve got the resources and ability to keep your screen time minimal, keep at it. Appleseed has a list of Approved screen programs coming your way that keeps our children grounded, supports our family values, and serves to teach them the things that matter! We can’t wait to share these with you.

I leave you with two indelible quotes:

“The world is obsessed with its children. Meanwhile the children want presence. They yearn for face-to-face presence.” - David Fitch.
A little screen time and a little presence, on repeat may be a great way to get through your days.

"Take a deep breath and affirm your intention to be fully present — here and now — at peace with What Is." - Scott Noelle.
Doing what you need to do to take care of yourself and remain present in your home will be the greatest gift you can give your kids - screen time included or not.

Peace and go easy on yourself,

Megan

Your Integrated Kid.

I have just come off a weekend intensive, and my world has been smashed open, again, as it often does at trainings like these. It usually starts with me walking into a room shaking with fear (why am I so nervous?) to lay out my mat with dozens of strangers. Then I practice integration with them, which, let me say, often feels just plain exposing. It's all of me, right there on my mat for everyone to see, exposed.

Since my first yoga class EVER in 2007, as a newly engaged young adult, at the Bayview & Sheppard YMCA, I have sought out this integration. Of course I didn't know what it was then, but I've stuck with this yoga-thing through all the ups and downs. And believe me, there have been ups and downs. Tears, anger, intolerance, swearing to myself that I must just walk away because it's too hard, and yet I have always known deep down that I must stay with and hold on to the integrity. Do what feels integral & strive for unity - every part of my body looked for it then and continues to look for it now. And another small piece of it was found this past weekend.

This journey of integration, or to make into a whole by bringing all parts together, is what Appleseed supports in this world. It's why I practice and it's why I deliver these teachings to your kids. It's the pursuit of finding integration, in all parts of our lives.

So if you're on this page, join me. Let's see what our kids can look like as integrated beings. And let's try our best to not let them lose that integration, as we throw them out into the world little by little. Because it's damn scary, this world of ours, and we ought to give them the greatest chance we possibly can of spreading the light we all know is there.

For the pursuit of integration,
Megan

How Yoga Can Help With Starting School

September is a tough time of year, no matter how you slice it.  Our hearts especially go out to those sweet families and children who are starting Kindergarten! It’s a new place, new people, and the beginning of a new part of life.  No matter the grade, your child’s wellbeing is incredibly important to you and you want this to be as positive of an experience as possible.  Every parent that sends their child to school goes through these September transitions, and they’re hard!  You’re not alone.

Yoga can help you and your child with all transitions, even starting school!  Notice how I said ‘you’ - as a parent our histories, beliefs, and way we move through life greatly affects our children.  In my experience of sending my oldest off to kindergarten, I realized that mostly i’m not ok - and my child is mostly just fine!

Ultimately it’s about creating a lifestyle of health for your family.  Practicing your own yoga and yoga with your child centres you both and will greatly help them in their growing years.  As I’ve said before, I wish I had yoga as a child!  

Here are a few ways yoga can help a child at any age start school:

1. Confidence - At Appleseed, your child is accepted and loved just as they are.  Their whole self is celebrated, including their differences!  Building on their poses and skills each week through games and fun stories creates a safe space for our kids to grow and build confidence.

2. Positive Self-Talk - Throughout class and especially during meditation and relaxation, children are led through inspiring imagery that focuses on all that’s beautiful, right and good in them.  These truths settle deep in their whole bodies and over time become part of their inner dialogue!  That’s the kind of thing I want my 4 year old to remember when he’s at school and misses me.

3. Deeper Connection - At our Toddler and Family Yoga classes, families stay together to strengthen and deepen our bonds with each other.  Touch, play, and resting together creates a sense of mutual trust between you and your child(ren).  Your child knows they are with you, has your attention, and is in a safe place. Quality time together will fill their reserves and assure them when you’re apart that you love them.

4.  A Positive Relationship with Rest - Yay for REST!  When our children are in school, they get TIRED.  Especially in the early years, during the after school hours they are starving and exhausted, which can make for a tricky bedtime (delaying the sleep they desperately need).  If they have established rest rituals and see rest as positive, this can greatly support their overall health and make the evenings more positive for everyone.

 All the best in your unique transition to school this September!

For the love and health of our families,  

Megan