Five Family Yoga Practices

Sasha Quince, founder of Let’s Go Yoga, gives us five simple yoga practices that the whole family can enjoy. These exercises are a fun and easy way to teach children the fundamentals of yoga, and develop their strength, flexibility, and mindfulness.

This game is a take on duck duck goose and is a great family game that stimulates patience and connection, and helps children to learn a range of different yoga poses. Once someone is tagged as goose, they must shout out the name of one yoga pose (for example “tree pose”) that the rest of the group must hold until the goose has run around the circle and back around to their spot. Repeat this until everyone gets a turn with option to modify the poses.

Lay down on your back with your families’ heads all close together. Look up at the clouds. Challenge each other to watch the clouds pass by one by one. Encourage children to sit quietly and relax their mind and body by taking a few deep breathes. You can later speak about what you noticed about the same tree or a similar cloud in the sky. Cloud gazing teaches children mindfulness, and whilst they may not be able to do it for long, even short periods will have a profound power to soothe the mind, and increase focus and clarity.

Use your breath to mimic the rise and fall of a hot air balloon. With your hands cupped in front of you, take four deep breathes in. Use your hands to mimic the shape of a hot air balloon inflating and rising up by slowly raising your arms in the air and opening your hands. After a few seconds, take a big breath out to deflate your hot air balloon and sink your hands and arms to the floor. Repeat a few times and keep encouraging the breathing to grow and sink the balloon.

With parents standing in a tree pose, ask your children to take deep breaths in and out to try to blow the tree down. If you’re a beginner to yoga, you might find this easier to do close to a wall or keeping the foot low to the ankle. After a short while, swap positions with your child, and ask the to become the tree, and you the wind.

Ask children to lie on their backs and pretend that they are an uncooked piece of spaghetti (straight and long). Your job is to cook them and soften them up. Start with your hands on their ankles and gently pick up their legs, swinging them from side to side to cook their noodle. Do the same by holding the wrists of the arms. Press your hands on their shoulders lightly. Give their ears, side of brows and head a gentle massage. Trickle your fingertips down the sides of their arms and legs. Now they are fully cooked relaxing and floating in the warm water. Encourage them to stay as long as they can. This activity is only for the children and we don’t advise that they try this on their parents, but siblings can do this for each other with adult instruction and supervision.

Sasha will be running free weekly yoga sessions for children in Abu Dhabi from January 19. Classes will take place every Saturday from 4:30pm until 5:30pm at The Studio on the Corniche and are suitable for children aged from 3 to 12. Booking is essential as spaces are limited to 12 children per class.

To book, or for more information, please email letsgoyoga@yahoo.com