You've probably already heard the news. Growing Yogis is moving to its very own space soon. Really soon.  Our last classes in our current locations will be May 23rd and then it's off to our new studio (other than the Kennebunk preschoolers at Nataraja School of Yoga, that class will stay where it is.)
Our new studio will be located at 935 Main St., in Waterboro.  We'll be sharing a home with Always and Forever Florist and Rings Crossing Natural Foods. 

There are many intentions behind this move. The first and biggest is that Growing Yogis needs to grow.  I was swayed from my original plan for a few months. The glory of the coast called to me, and I was pulled away.  It took a few months and serious conversations to get back on track. When I began teaching yoga it was important to me to be able to offer options in my community.  As a mom who lives in semi-rural Maine, I greatly dislike travelling to Biddeford, Sanford, Portland and, yes, Kennebunk, to find activities for my kids. And, with gas prices what they are...... well, who can afford to drive anymore?  Not that there aren't a few great programs already in place. Swim is offered for preschoolers and toddlers at Massabesic Health Resources. Gymnastics and art through Waterboro Parks and Rec. Dance is offered through The Konservatoriet Dance Studio, where I was lucky enough to teach my kid's yoga classes for the last year.  I can personally say that these are great options for kids, so I'm not looking to compete, just to offer something else.  While we're here on this topic of places that offer great programming, I'd like to acknowledge Peggy Greer, owner of Anam Cara Studio in Alfred, who was the first teacher that made yoga click for me. Thanks, Peggy. 

Another driving force for me is that our school budget is dwindling each year. As our superintendent said in a budget meeting last year, we are no longer looking at the best educational scenario, there is no money for best. We are simply working with what we have to provide our kids with a basic education.  As this happens families will need to supplement where they can.  This is one of those gaps Growing Yogis can help fill.  It takes a village and all of that business.  In addition to yoga for the whole family, I'd like to provide a setting for other educational enrichment opportunities for our kids, without breaking the bank, or driving twenty miles.  Foreign languages, creative arts, book groups and playgroups tops the list.  If you have other ideas please share them. 

The plans for expansion will begin with more yoga, for more people, at more times that work, on more days.  Again, suggestions are welcome. Pricing has changed to make yoga more accessible to more families.  Our new pricing structure is designed to encourage adults to come to more than one class a week.  A healthy, happy family begins with a healthy, happy mom and dad after all.  The new schedule will be coming soon. 

A few weeks ago I asked the Girl's Class to complete a survey. The last question on the paper was 'Is there anything else you would like me to know?'  One girl wrote in "I like you."  Is there anything better than hearing that at the end of a long day.  I like her too. I like all of my yoga families and am so blessed that they have allowed me to become a part of their lives. I hope that, by expanding Growing Yogis, I can serve more families, bringing yoga to them so that they can know, first hand, how fabulous yoga can be and what it can bring to their lives.

A few nights ago, while  plugged into the tv, an ad came on for yet another prescription drug. Normally we have a good chuckle at these ads at my house. Need longer eyelashes? Buy our new amazing drug! You might go blind but you will be beautiful! Cholesterol too high? Forget about diet and exercise, pop one of these instead! Then there are the ones that list death as a possible side effect. Really, death? Can something as permanent as death be considered a side effect? Anyway, the ad that came on the other night crossed a line for me. Its one thing to market adult medications with horrendous side effects, but when it turns to kids I get a bit riled up. ADHD gets me going every time.

I am no stranger to ADHD. I live with an ADHD spouse and it can be quite frustrating. I’ve worked in preschools and public schools and I’ve seen the struggles that children, their parents and their teachers face in trying to create an environment that works for both the diagnosed child and his or her classmates. I’ve seen kids so medicated that they can barely stay awake in their seats and are devoid of the emotions that make them, well, them.  I won’t get into (at this moment anyway) the fact that I firmly believe we are over-diagnosing this disorder. But drugging a child every day to get through school, or keep the peace at home, raises some red flags to me. Particularly when the side effects can be more debilitating than the original problem.

Sleepiness, tiredness, insomnia (which is it, you can or can’t sleep on this?), nausea, stomach pain, low heart rate, fainting. Your child should not operate heavy machinery. Your child should avoid dehydration. Your child may become a zombie.

We can’t be in our children’s bodies to know how the drug we give them makes them feel. I argue that it is one thing to medicate ourselves, experience the side effect and know whether or not it is worth it for us to continue, but it is an entirely different matter to feed our kids a pill and hope they don’t faint. Hope they don’t fall asleep on their desk. Hope they don’t spend their day with stomach pains and nausea.

There are other ways to manage the issues created by ADHD. The first is to recognize that some kids are simply high energy. It comes with being a kid. These are the kiddos who absolutely must play outside for hours each day no matter the weather. The ones who need to play sports and who need skillful teachers who understand that they not all kids are perfect. There is proof that changing a child’s diet can remedy the hyperactivity. Eliminating gluten, processed foods, dyes, and SUGAR can eliminate the symptoms. Have you looked at what is on school menus for breakfast lately? Cinnamon buns, chocolate milk, pop-tarts in some schools. If we feed our children a breakfast of sugar whose fault is it when they can’t sit still and pay attention in class? Other types of non-drug intervention include bio-feedback, sensory integration techniques, positive behavior interventions (think reward systems vs. punishments), family education, meditation, acupuncture, and counseling. Oh yeah, and yoga, of course. There are also several herbal supplements that can reduce symptoms. However, just because it’s herbal doesn’t mean its safe. Do research, before giving your child anything you don’t know about. And then, when we exhaust all of these options, and nothing works? Then we an think about turning to pharmaceuticals, knowing we have done everything in our power for our child.

Parenting isn’t about taking the quick fix. Parenting is hard work. We have chosen to bring these little beings into the world, knowing full well sending them back where they came from is not an option. We owe it to them to try our very hardest to keep their bodies pure for as long as we can. Heaven knows they won’t stay that way forever. My theory on parenting has always come down to this: kids tell us what they need from us, and it is our job to be listening. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out what they are saying with their behavior, but all that means is we need to work harder at trying to understand. That’s what behavior is for - communication. It isn’t simply to push our buttons and turn our hair gray. It won’t always be easy, but we were never guaranteed that it would be. We can’t always do it on our own, sometimes we have to ask for help and that’s okay. No one should be judged for needing help. There are professionals for this. Find one if you need one. Don’t let your child be a walking list of side effects.

Maybe you got the email already or saw the Facebook post, but if you didn't, let me fill you in.  The Spring Equinox is fast approaching. You know that day when, even if the ground is still blanketed in snow, we New Englanders begin to see the end of this frozen world in sight. The eve of spring.  The official date I'm referring to is March 20th.  This year we've had a particularly long and cold winter in Maine, so when a friend, and fellow teacher, suggested this idea I jumped on board.  108 Sun Salutations to welcome spring. 

So far when I have brought this up to my students (the adults) and friends and family I have been greeted with faces of disbelief and abject horror. "Why on earth would you do that?", they ask me. "Why 108?"

Well, in ancient yogi times 108 was considered to be the number of wholeness of existence. It is the average distance of the sun and the moon to earth (multiplication is involved here and I am no math whiz, so I'm going to trust the info given to me on this one). 108 is also the number of 'Upanishads' (ancient Indian texts). 108 is the number of beads on a mala (and a catholic rosary) so essentially, if a person completes 108 Sun Salutations that person becomes the mala.

Now that you have the reason for the number let me tell you why you should come and give a go with me.

1. I have never done this before so I am a beginner in this respect.  My sources tell me that training for this is not necessary. It isn't like running a 5K. I am putting a lot of trust into those sources. I'm letting go of any fear that I can't do this. I know I can, and I know you can too. 
2. We are breaking those 108 Sun Salutes into 4 sets of 27 with a break between each set to drink water, rest and use the facilities.
3. Yogis around the world are doing this on the same day, how cool is that! My husband referred to it as The Great Guinness Toast of the yoga world. Even cooler.
4. What else are you going to do to welcome spring? Clean your house? This is a great excuse to procrastinate cleaning. This is spring cleaning of the body, mind and soul.
5. Impress your friends and family. Ok, granted that is not a very yogic reason but I couldn't resist.  :)
6. Practicing Sun Salutations is very meditative.  We connect each pose in the vinyasa to our breath. Meditation has been proven very effective in reducing stress. If you are not someone who can sit still to meditate this might just be the ticket for you.
7. Think of the physical workout involved. What a great way to kickstart a healthy spring.
8. Completing this as part of a group has its benefits. A sense of community.  We will do the counting so you won't lose your place, we will support each other when it starts to feel like it will not end, and we will all celebrate together when we finish.
9. It is a valid reason to escape your kids for an afternoon.
10. It is a challenge. Challenging yourself is an important way to grow as an individual. The sense of accomplishment after a real challenge is a blissful thing.
So, come salute the sun and welcome in spring with us. Be part of the global mala on March 20th. For details, give a call or email. Now, who's with me?

I opened this week’s issue of Newsweek after a conversation with my mother. She had asked if I read it yet and what my thoughts were. The article is titled “Bow Down to the Yoga Teacher”. It’s about the relationship between yoga teachers, their students and their egos. And it makes me angry.

Not angry at Newsweek, or the author Casey Schwartz, but angry at these teachers of yoga. In the article Schwartz writes “Do yoga, transcend your ego and discover your inner humility- at least that’s the idea behind this ancient spiritual practice” and then goes on to rail against the “celebrity teachers’ who are so ego driven they have lost the reasons behind why we practice yoga in the first place.

The western practice of yoga has come under fire in the last ten years or so (probably longer but I was peacefully unaware). In the east yoga is a much more spiritual practice. It isn’t the tool for fitness that we most often see here. I’ve experienced spiritual awakenings through yoga and I’ve also seen the physical changes that it has brought to my body so I guess I fall somewhere in the middle of the why-to-do-yoga spectrum. I don’t see the harm in using yoga to achieve physical fitness as some of my colleagues do. I think that anything that gets people off the couch and in their bodies is worthwhile. If you are attending yoga classes simply to complement your weight training or cardio work-out, SUPER. At least you are doing yoga. Maybe you won’t meet your true self or access your inner energy, but you’re being active. You are lowering your stress level, you are building strength and flexibility, you are gaining all the health benefits that yoga brings.

Yoga is more accessible now than it has ever been. Yoga is everywhere. We no longer need to seek out gurus so that they may deem us worthy of their wisdom because yoga is almost on as many street corners as Starbucks. There are so many varieties of yoga it can make it hard to choose where to go to a class when we’ve decided that we want to go to a class. Keeping in mind that all teachers are not created equal, we also need to keep trying until we find the teacher that is right for us. It shouldn’t come down to who is the most famous as much as it comes down to who works best for you. I’m not suggesting that instructors who have been teaching for a lifetime shouldn’t be sought out and praised, or that they don’t have something to offer us, but they are still only human. Sometimes we build people up in our minds, putting them on pedestals. It can be disappointing when that pedestal crumbles.

The ‘celebrity’ teachers seem to have forgotten, as Schwartz puts it, “the fact that they were ever students themselves”. There is a yoga instructor in my community, who I greatly respect, who attended a class with a well-known teacher a year or so ago in Portland. It was an event. There were pre-requisites for the class, such as being able to be in unsupported headstand for 15 minutes. This is a teacher who my friend greatly admired. During the questions and answer period, my friend asked a question regarding a pose, which was apparently a mistake. The teacher verbally berated her in front of the entire class for wasting her time with such a trivial question. Huh? Isn’t that the point of teachers? To answer questions. I remember in middle school hearing a teacher state that there are no stupid questions. Talk about ego.

We do not come to yoga to be judged. We come to learn. We do not come to make our teachers feel good. We come to make ourselves feel good. Whatever one’s reason for practicing yoga, we should leave feeling better than we did when we arrived. That isn’t going to happen if our teachers think of themselves as gods. In the world of yoga instructors I am an infant. I know that there is a lot I have yet to learn. I know that I the longer I teach, the better the teacher I will be. I also that there is one thing I will carry with me through my career: my classes will be accessible to my students. I will not judge. I will not condemn. I will continuously check in with myself to be sure I am practicing my yamas and niyamas and not letting my ego take over. My classes will be places to ask questions and get answers. Maybe I won’t have your answer right away but I will find it for you or better yet, I will help you find it for yourself. I am not a “yoga diva” nor do I want to become one.

I think that articles like Schwartz’s are important because yoga students or potential yoga students need to know that yoga is for everyone. If teachers behave as deities, yoga loses its user-friendliness and people stop practicing. Of course the die-hards will still keep on but the rest of us will get left behind. Those of us who are out-of-shape, overweight couch potatoes will never try yoga. We will never find the life changing peace it can bring. We will never meet the muscles that have hidden dormant in our bodies. We will never stop and breathe. So don’t bow down to me. I am no one special. I don’t care if you are a vegetarian or can stand in headstand. I am a yoga teacher and I appreciate your stupid questions, so bring them on.

This week has come with defining moments. Opportunities for me to grow as a person, a teacher and a business owner. Light bulb moments, when if you were a cartoon character, a light bulb would suddenly appear over your head when you hit upon a brilliant idea. I believe that it is what you do with such moments that make or break you.

In the time since I began my journey through yoga until now I have been pretty focused on the physical side of yoga. I have spent my yoga time practicing asanas (poses), preparing class plans and teaching my small classes. I have studied the yamas and niyamas and worked to put them to good use in my life and practice. I have experienced energy moving through my body. I have understood, although not made much time for the spirituality of yoga. The piece that had escaped me was meditation. A few months ago a friend asked me to teach her how to meditate, and I laughed. Can’t teach something I hadn’t successfully learned to do. Recent events in my life have begun to shift my yoga practice from a purely physical one into something entirely different.

I have begun to find the benefits in meditation. It happened quite unintentionally. I didn’t decide to sit and meditate, one of those light bulbs I mentioned suddenly went off and I found myself sitting on a bolster, breathing into the quiet of the room around me. Things suddenly became very clear to me. And then after the first time, it has come to be easier and easier. When faced with a decision to make, instead of frantically rushing head-long into a choice (a choice I will most likely come to regret), I have been able to sit and breathe. I have successfully turned off my brain and surrendered myself to trusting that an answer will come to me when I am ready to receive it. Thus the light bulbs. Answers to my dilemmas are falling into my lap. That’s not to say that the solutions are easy. Some will take quite a lot of work. Some answers bring more choices. Choices about how hard I want to work to solve the problems.

Not solving your problems is quite easy. Sometimes we have the answers and know what we need to do to achieve our goals but the work involved scares us away. For some of us the concept of success in our lives causes anxiety. We sabotage ourselves so that success slips from our grasp. Or, the opposite happens. We grasp at what we want so intensely that we can’t see when things are no longer working. Practicing meditation can provide an opportunity to step back from whatever issue we might be facing so that we might see it from a different perspective. I’m not suggesting that meditation can solve everything. We know that we can’t expect a light bulb moment every time we meditate. But at the very least, we stop, we breathe. Sometimes that’s all we really need is a chance to breathe.

The journey continues through yoga and through life. Finding time to sit with the stillness is now a priority in my life. Making room for meditation defines me. What defines you?

A friend texted me the other day that her 15 month old could do down dog upon request. It made me smile because there aren’t many things that 15 month olds will do when you ask them. This little guy has two older sisters who have been in yoga classes since September and a mom who comes to class every week so he is certainly exposed to yoga. It started me thinking though, of how kids are naturally drawn to yoga, with or without formal instruction.

As a child, if you checked on me while I was sleeping, you would often find me on my back with my legs in baddhakonasana (butterfly pose). It just felt right to me. My yoga teacher recalls sitting in poses before she ever even heard the word yoga. Kids listen to their bodies in a way that we seem to forget how to do as adults. Kids move because it feels good, not because they are trying to get the recommended 30 minutes of exercise each day. They don’t care about the health benefits of yoga as long as they are having fun. Kids don’t care if they are in yoga clothes or on a mat, they’ll do yoga anywhere. Deep into a game of Candy-land, during one of our many snow days last week, my own three year old spent the time waiting for her next turn in the one-legged variation of down dog. I marveled at her ability pop back and forth between unintentional yoga and moving her red plastic gingerbread man down the rainbow path to the Kandy Kastle (their spelling not mine).

Winter in New England is tricky with little people. We can’t get outside as much as we need to. Schools are closed with no notice due to weather we can’t control. The sun seems to disappear for weeks at a time. Cabin fever begins to set in and once it does all bets are off. Most of us fight it, at least for awhile. We complain, we overeat, we exercise less. Our bodies crave hibernation. More than once I have wished I was a bear who could fall asleep around Thanksgiving and wake up in April. Even if you enjoy winter sports and activities there comes that moment when you have had enough. Kids don’t seem to fight it as adults do. Kids surrender to the joys of winter and all that it entails. They are blissfully unaware of the scheduling nightmares snow days create. They are happy to use their ‘outside voices’ inside. They make fun and find movement wherever they are, because that’s what kids do. This makes winter is the perfect time to bring yoga into your family. Kids crave movement. Movement is good. It’s too easy to curl up with a book on a chilly day.

If you are feeling the need to move, or even if you aren’t, but you know you need to, here are a few tricks to have up your sleeve as we watch January crawl slowly into February:

Musical mats: Just like musical chairs but with yoga mats and pose cards. When the music stops you hop on the mat closest to you and come into the pose on the card. (a Child Light Yoga game)

Toss-Across yoga style: Remember Toss-Across, the tic-tac-toe game played with bean bags? Using index cards draw poses on the cards and tape over the X’s and O’s. Chuck a bean bag at it and have everyone come into the pose that gets flipped. Three in a row and everybody wins. You could do the same game without the Toss-Across board, by mixing up the cards and placing them face down.

Down Dog Tunnels: This is a favorite with preschoolers. Take turns coming into down dog and the other person rolls a ball under you. Seem kind of boring? Not if you’re three. If you are three, it’s a hoot!

Yoga Flow Collages: Cut up all those old issues of Yoga Journal and put them to work. For younger kids the simple act of cutting and gluing is all that’s needed. For school-agers, challenge them to create a flow of poses with the pictures they cut out, and then try it together.

When all else fails and you simply need to get out of the house, come to a yoga class. Give the kids up to someone else for a little while where they can be loud and silly, put their feet on the walls and stand on their heads. Let a certified professional give you a break for an hour so you can re-group and breathe. And, in the off chance there isn’t a kid’s yoga class near you, there is an adult one. Yoga studios are EVERYWHERE. Find one that works for you and take your own class. Maybe it doesn’t solve the problem of entertaining the children, but after an hour or so of being in your own body, you’ll be recharged and ready to go. Movement is good. Just ask a toddler.

    Each Sunday I look forward to finding the 'Mini-Yogi Tip of the Week' in my inbox.  Shana Meyerson does a lovely job of providing inspiration each week in a short and sweet paragraph. This week's tip involves the concept of Asteya which translates to 'non-stealing'. Teaching children about stealing usually involves not taking things from others. We don’t take things that don’t belong to us. Be that taking a toy from a friend, money from Dad’s wallet, or candy from a store. We simply don’t take things. Asteya asks us to go beyond things. We become aware, as we look closely at Asteya, that there are lots of other things up for stealing. Time, attention, and feelings to name a few.

One of my most frustrating moments as a parent comes when an unnecessary mess is made that falls to me to clean up. I’m fine with making planned messes. I know when we take out finger paints there will be clean up involved. It’s the unexpected messes caused by lack of thought really push my buttons because they steal my time. I remember a teacher in high school saying to a student “if you are going to waste my time in class, I’ll waste yours in detention after school”. No, the student wasn’t me, but the words stuck with me. The teacher, most likely without knowing it, was commenting on Asteya. The waste of time.

Another example of Asteya is the stealing of attention. Anyone who has more than one child understands this by another name - sibling rivalry. Siblings compete for the attention of their parents every day in lots of different ways. One child is happily snuggled up on mom’s lap when, out of nowhere, comes an imaginary emergency, from a brother or sister, requiring mom’s immediate attention. Another example, that I was recently a part of, involved a visit with a friend of mine. Her super smart preschooler was determined to not let me have a moment of her mother’s attention and tried every trick she could think of to bring our awareness back to her. In her world I was the one stealing the attention. A classic case of the chicken or the egg, I guess. Who didn’t practice Asteya was it her or me?

Practicing Asteya as adults can be a tricky thing. As adults we experience ways to steal every day. At work, persuading clients to come try our services instead of staying with the same company. On the phone, we know the other person wants to end the conversation and we keep talking at them. Listening a friend tell about something fabulous that happened and then directing the conversation back to ourselves, instead of being present in her joy. There are fine lines out there that we cross every day. Sometimes intentionally and sometimes not.

Once attention is called to something we begin to see it everywhere. We become aware. How does the concept of Asteya present itself in your life? How are you aware?

Soccer, football, field hockey and cheerleading are coming to an end. Hopefully everyone had a great season. As your sport finishes up in the next week or two, consider coming to try a yoga class. We are entering the holiday rush, it gets earlier every year it seems. Halloween drops us right into Thanksgiving and you all know what comes after that. A mad rush into Christmas.
 
While we can all agree that adding to family obligations this time of year is not the best idea, adding yoga can be a blessing. Yoga class can be the time in the week where you let it all go. The crazy planning and shopping, and for kids, the excitement. Excitement is stressful for little people. Think back to your own childhood. The aniticpation for the holidays begins to build as we head into the weeks before Halloween. The promise of buckets of candy followed by weeks of deciding what to ask the man in the red suit to bring lead to high anxiety for kids. High anxiety begins to breed negative behavior because kids don't know what to do with all the excitement in their heads. They bounce about the house, they can't sleep at night, you can feel the energy vibrating out of them.

  This is where yoga comes in. Yoga can be where time slows down for an hour or so a week. Slowing down is a good thing for busy minds. And, while we do celebrate the holidays in our kids yoga classes we do it in a mindful way, using the themes of each holiday to direct our poses, and discussions. Adults need classes just as much as kids do. You won't be asked to pose like a pumpkin or walk like a turkey, but to turn off your brain for an hour instead.  As moms we try to get it all done. And we know that there are a few dads who shoulder this burden, in most cases it is us moms who plan, organize, shop and cook our way to January, where we collapse, exhausted. And then, inevitably get sick. Our immune systems are depleted and when the stress subsides our bodies cave to all the germs our little darlings bring home to share with us. Yoga can be what gets a mom through the holidays in one piece.  Simply learning to breathe deeply can make a huge difference in the weeks of craziness. Things to think on.
In any case, come try a class, or come back to a class if you've been away, We've missed you. If you are a first timer we are offering a discounted, low committment way to try a class. 4 classes for $35 for any newcomer.  Instead of waiting for the new year to make resolutions about exercise, end the year feeling great.