Is yoga for your school?
SpiritLevel yoga provides young people with a safe, calm and playful space to experience yoga and learn. Anyone can start yoga at any age, regardless of co-ordination, balance, flexibility or strength. These things will improve quickly with practice. The amazing thing about yoga is that it’s always evolving and changing, so it never gets boring.
One of the most difficult, but ultimately most liberating things about yoga is letting go of the ego and accepting that no-one is better than anyone else. Everyone is just doing their best on any given day.
KS3: young people are continuing their journey through puberty. They experience significant changes not only in their physical body, but in their emotions and sense of self. It can be a time of self-doubt and increased awareness and influence of peers, advertising, fashion and music. It’s a tricky time and yoga can assist young people to know themselves and respond with confidence. Yoga promotes fairness and equality which is crucial at a time when friendship groups can become complicated and pressurised. Yoga fosters a young person’s curiosity about themselves and the world around them.
KS4: yoga increases confidence and provides a platform for young people to show their developing skills (postures and balance). Yoga develops self-control through concentration/relaxation techniques, listening to others and considering personal and others emotional response to situations. Breathing and relaxation techniques are especially helpful in the build up to exams.
KS5 \ sixth form: yoga delivered in an accessible style can support young people as they move into adult hood by providing an environment that acknowledges their increasing maturity. Yoga provides an opportunity to explore personal limitations, personal expectations and personal goals for the future. In a highly competitive world, yoga allows a young person time and space to acknowledge personal achievements without direct comparison to others.
What are the benefits for young people?
Body: Yoga builds strength, stamina and flexibility. It develops and understanding of how the body moves & how to keep joints and muscles safe in different asanas (postures). Yoga develops co-ordination and balance.
Mind: Yoga increases self-awareness helping young people face life with a greater belief in their potential and personal resilience. It fosters the development of each young person’s own unique personality and supports creativity and expression.
Emotions: Yoga assists young people with learning how to take control of how they react to different situations. Understanding where feelings come from and how to respond to those feelings is a great skill to learn.
Yoga provides young people with a range of techniques they can use as they grow and enter adulthood:-
- Pranayama (breathing) techniques
- Controlling the breath
- Breathing with movement
- Improved breathing to assist with general health and well-being
- Meditation / mindfulness
- Developing concentration and focus
- Being in the moment: learning to resist racing into the next moment without noticing the present
- Asanas (postures)
- Non-competitive exercise
- Knowledge of joints and muscles
- Relaxation
- Learning the importance of stilling the mind and body
- Focus & concentration
- Chanting & music
- Tools to manage life’s challenges
- Focus/concentration and memory
What does your school need to provide?
Please provide yoga mats (one per person). Children should wear comfortable clothing that allows their bodies to stretch. A spacious room for the class to take place, free from obstructions/furniture.