As I prepare to conclude my yoga teacher training and move out into the world as an instructor I would like to bring yoga to those people who may otherwise not have access or afford to practice yoga. One population in particular, with whom I already work, is inner city youth. In my role as a youth program manager in affordable housing sites around Denver, I’ve been imagining the power and impact that yoga could have with this population.

Inspired by my desire to continue to work with youth and motivated by the final personal experiment, I chose to explore the pedagogy of teaching yoga to youngsters. With my three month Yoga Teacher Training coming to an end, I feel more or less confident with the idea of teaching to a room of compliant adults who generally are quiet and relatively good listeners. In contrast, my day job, working with youth in a chaotic and haphazard manner made me curious about what a class full of rambunctious elementary aged children practicing yoga would look like. I began by researching several books on teaching strategies for working with children, I explored accounts of teachers who interface with kids, and worked to modify my general teaching knowledge to my understanding of youth development methodology.

After teaching the class I reflected quite a bit on my experience and what I struggled with, what I would change, and what worked well. While I certainly did some things well, I was confronted with more challenges than anything else. First, I struggled with my ability to discipline. I am fully aware that a yoga class with kids will not be quite or calm and probably shouldn’t be. However, should I reprimand or discipline children for any of their behavior, particularly when nothing about discipline feels yogic? Second, the kids that I work with rarely are acknowledged for their effort or good work and I work hard at reinforcing positive behavior. Yet, should I tell someone their down dog looks good or they are doing such a good job trying to balance in tree pose, when it merely is feeding their ego? Third, Many of the youngsters had taken yoga before in school, and were knowledgeable enough to request poses or wanted to teach me various asana. This behavior required me to be humble and learn from my students, totally shattering my vision of what a student, teacher relationship should look like. Fourth, adapting some of the poses to kids, like turning a relatively static Bhekasana into leap frog, or an Adho Mukha Svanasana into a barking dog, seems trivial and far from the calm and serene idea that I have of yoga.