What Your Toddler Really Wants

This little rainbow baby of mine makes my heart explode often. His love for movement and natural agility blows us away - not to mention moments like these when I know his weekly yoga classes are creating a deep and lasting impact on his life. (I caught him here in legs up the wall by his own accord just a few weeks after his second birthday.)

It’s true, you may bring your child to Toddler Yoga and never stop wondering why you’re there and what good it’s doing because your child is running in circles during savasana (and the teacher is happy about it).

But these healthy patterns and environments don’t create impact in just 45 minutes one time on a wet Saturday morning in April. It’s consistency, community, and the family connection over time that makes yoga what it is.

And kids get it. Toddlers get it. They love and crave this freedom, this play with their parents and siblings, this creative space where they can be themselves.

A place to freely be themselves.

For the Love of our Families,

Megan

Pose of the Season: Spring

Butterfly Pose (Baddha Konasana)

After being sick and mostly home for what seemed like weeks, I emerged from the house into a world of spring!  Talk about a renewal of my cells and the world around me.  The snow is mostly gone and i’m pretty sure my parka is going away this weekend.  One of my most favourite things in the world is my boys and I wearing our warm wool sweaters, comfy pants, and rain boots while breathing in the cool moist air and exploring the muddy and wet world outside. 

Butterfly is the pose of spring this year.  Did you know butterflies have taste receptors on their feet and their wings are made of tiny scales?

Benefits
The benefits of butterfly pose are fantastic, especially opening those hips after a long winter!   This pose also helps to stimulate the abdominal organs, reproductive organs, bladder and kidneys, as well as open the heart and stimulates circulation.  This pose is known to help with depression and anxiety and also stretches the inner thighs, groin, and knees.  These are all things that aid in our health as we transition from winter to the warmer seasons.

Do it!
Butterfly is simple to do, even babies and toddlers love it.  Sit in a comfortable seat and bring the soles of your feet to touch in front of you.  Position your heels in a comfortable spot, maybe closer to your seat or farther away, you decide!  Grow your spine nice and tall, if you feel your pelvis rocking back, sit up on a blanket or cushion.  To fly your butterfly, bounce your knees up and down, these are your colourful wings flapping! 

Have Fun!
Where will your butterfly fly - are you a Monarch flying south?  If your butterfly gets tired, it can go to sleep by bringing your nose down close to your toes.  Your butterfly may also stretch out to create bigger wings - just grab your big toes and stretch out your legs long while balancing on your seat!  Falling over is part of the fun, how far back can you lean before you fall?  Partner butterfly is a blast too, just sit back to back with a friend or family member and float your wings.  What colour is your butterfly?  Fly with your sensitive antennas, just place your fists on either side of your head - pointer fingers out long!   Or maybe you’re a swarm of butterflies with your friends and family!

Do you have another creative expression of butterfly pose??  We’d love to hear it! 

Here's to wet umbrellas, cleaning up, and taking a deep breath when the mud abounds,

Happy Spring!

Megan

5 Reasons Your Family Will Love Saturday Yoga!

It’s Friday afternoon and the excitement of the approaching weekend is soaring! You finally get to have a relaxed morning with the family, or if the stars align, maybe even an extra hour of sleep!!

Starting your family’s weekend with a yoga class at Appleseed gives you time to reconnect after a long week. Here are 5 other reasons your family will LOVE Saturday Yoga:

1. Family Time.  At our Saturday classes, you always remain with your child.  This means you get in serious family time and needn’t worry about if your child feels comfortable in class.

2. Always Drop-In.  Our drop-in classes are convenient for you!  If you need to visit family, someone is sick, or there’s a giant snow-storm, you can miss a class with no penalty.

3. Burns Energy.  Your child will be tired out after yoga! Cheers to a solid nap or low-key Saturday afternoon for the whole family. 

4. Uniqueness.  Our programming at Appleseed is unique, no doubt about it.  We are constantly using our creative imaginations, building inspiring stories, and connecting to ourselves, each other, our community at large, and the earth.  Where else do all these things happen?

5. FAMILY SAVASANA.  If you haven’t been to an Appleseed class yet, I can’t wait to show you our typical savasana.  After a class of fun, sweat, and laughter, you will be overjoyed to rest alongside your family.  Snuggle time comes with cushions, blankets, sweet music, foot massages and a surprising amount of stillness!

We look forward to seeing you soon!  Toddler Yoga is at 9am and Family Yoga is at 11:30am each and every Saturday.

For the Love of our Families,

Megan

But My Child Won't Relax!

I have an incredible story to share with you.

I have a 5 year old yoga student who is extraordinary at relaxation.  It’s remarkable.  She relaxes more easily than most adults I know!  She doesn’t flinch, and lets me do all the work to uncover her feet for massage, while leaving her legs and body incredibly limp.  In each class, about 5 minutes before savasana, she quietly asks: “is relaxation soon?!”  It’s her favourite.  I had never seen this in a young student before, until our first class together.

And do you know what her parents said when I mentioned this?  They looked at me with shock and wonder: “What? Are you sure?  She takes forever to fall asleep each night!  We actually have to give her melatonin!”

Believe it or not, children are very capable of relaxing and even love it!  And you also may be surprised by how your child responds to a yoga class.  The way I see it, there isn’t much to lose.  We look forward to exploring relaxation and many other life-giving practices with your child at Appleseed!

Want to learn more?  Check out the many other Benefits of Kids Yoga.

For the Love of Our Families,

Megan Snider 

The Benefits of Family Yoga - Part #2

A few months back I posted about some of the many benefits of Family Yoga.  The list continues, so read on to learn more about how Family Yoga is good for you and your brood!   

 6. Family Yoga shows children that parents are not perfect.  Up to a certain age, children believe their parents are super-human!  They seem to never run out of time, money or resources, and this can create high expectations for parents to fulfill.  There are always poses a parent finds difficult and those a child find's difficult.  This reality check brings a humanizing quality to the parents, releasing them of expectations from the child. 

7.  Family Yoga teaches families how to relax together.  Most parents want their children to learn ways to relax and be more at peace!  What a better way to learn these skills then doing it as a family!  Yoga is wonderful for discharging energy and also engaging the rest and digest response, releasing those loving, calming hormones. 

8.  Family Yoga provides an opportunity for positive feedback among family members.  Since every person and every body can do yoga, there are always opportunities for encouragement in family yoga class!  We always encourage positive feedback for each family member in class, no matter what shape a body holds.  Yoga is about holding space for a wide breadth of experiences, from the tiniest yogi to the most experienced.

9.  Family Yoga inspires creativity as a family.  When we play yoga, we exchange roles and role-play a lot, and this contributes to increased creativity among family members.  We like to mix it up and take a dune buggy ride across the Sahara right after baking a pizza in Tuscany!  Often, this creativity translates over into moments outside of class!

10.  Family Yoga creates a sense of connection.  Each family yoga class doesn't just consist of poses alone.  Yoga is about creating wholistic community, so wether we like it or not we are sharing ourselves emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and more when we share a family yoga class.  We share this within our own family and with the families in class with us!  This happens verbally through our class introductions, and physically as we touch others in group poses, and in our ending relaxation.  In class we learn from others and garner a sense of connection to life, truly knowing that we are all connected and going through life together.  This is in large part the essence of family yoga.

I look forward to sharing all these benefits of family yoga and more as we participate in class together!  If you can think of any other benefits of Family Yoga, please share, I'd love to hear them!

For the Love of our Families,

Megan