Kids Yoga: Teaching the 8s

by: Sarah Herrington

The Eight-Limbed Path and the Eight Intelligence’s

1. Verbal Intelligence: Learning with words, writing, reading, talking, rhyme.
2. Mathematic Intelligence: Learning with numbers, counting and problem-solving.
3. Visual Intelligence: Learning with images, coloring, drawing, building, creating.
4. Kinesthetic Intelligence: Learning through movement, dance, touch, physical poses.
5. Musical Intelligence: Learning with a song, drum beats, rhythm and sound patterns.  When in doubt, sing instructions to kids.  This is attention-grabbing and helps with memorizing.
6. Social Intelligence: Learning by playing, sharing, communicating, cooperating, doing group or partner poses or games.
7. Intrapersonal Intelligence:  Learning by introspection, intuition, journaling, reading, reflecting.
8. Naturalist Intelligence: Learning through nature, whether it’s playing outdoors, taking care of animals or pets, or reading stories about animals.

Asana: Asana means “pose,” and makes up all the physical yoga poses we practice.
Pranayama: breathing exercise.  When you try “take five” breath or “bunny breath” that’s pranayama.  When you focus on your inhale (taking breath in) with one movement and your exhale (letting breath out) with another movement you could say that’s pranayama, too.  Changing your breath can change how you feel
Dharana: concentrating on one thing completelyPratyahara: withdrawing the senses
Dhyana: meditation
Samadhi: complete joy, or bliss

Patanjali was a wise man who lived about two thousand years ago in India.  Though people were already practicing yoga, Patanjali wrote down the Yoga Sutras to share the “Eight Limbs of Yoga.” You can think of the Eight Limb’s like branches on the Tree of Yoga.   You can practice as many limbs, or branches, as you are interested in.

Though asana is obviously the “most popular” limb practiced in the west and in kids classes, there are ways to approach the other limbs in kids yoga classes.  If you look for natural opportunities to teach them and utilize the eight intelligence’s, kids will absorb a lot and get a more complete view of yoga.

The last four limbs of the Yoga Sutras are the more spiritual ones, so they are the ones I use most sparingly, if at all, in a school setting.  For example, we can practice ‘pratyahara’ by closing our eyes when we do poses to notice how the pose feels from the inside.  When we do this, the pose becomes a series of sensations and not so much a shape in space.  We focus on ourselves and not what our neighbors are doing.  It can be a really fun challenge for young yogis to try poses, or even a whole vinyasa, with eyes closed.

We can practice dharana with schoolwork, when we read a book with such focus we didn’t think about anything else.  With older kids we can discuss the pluses and minuses of multitasking versus dharana.  This is a generation growing up with the internet and lots of media happening at once, busy school schedules, etc.  Discuss how it feels to focus your energy on one thing at a time.  Some say we wake up every morning with a bucket full of prana, or energy, to use.  How do you want to use your energy today?  Notice how using your energy on one thing at a time saves more energy for later, as opposed to using it on many things at once.  Being scattered can be very draining.

The more creative you can be in using the Eight Intelligence’s and looking for opportunities to teach the Eightfold Path, the more fun and complete your kids class will be.