How Yoga and Mindfulness came about
Autumn 2013, Pennsylvania, USA. The beginning of my training in Yoga and Mindfulness. My family and I had moved from France to Pennsylvania the previous winter for my husband’s work, settling in the quaint town of Narberth, a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and one of many neighborhoods on the historic Pennsylvania Main Line. By the time the leaves were changing to reds and golden yellows, life in a new country was beginning to take on some kind of familiarity. Yoga, initially an excuse to get out of our old ‘row house’ and venture into the snow and lonely streets in the hope of meeting people, was a discovery for me. It soon become an incredibly enjoyable and mellow part of my week. By September of our first year, both our children were in school. I found myself for the first time in years with time to think, to walk, to garden, to meet people during the day, and to take my time… So when I came across the small flyer at my local Yoga Garden Studio, offering training to teach children yoga and mindfulness, the seeds began growing almost before they reached the soil!
So there it was; late October 2013, I had committed to a new course with a small group of women from very different backgrounds, all eager to begin training with the wonderful Gail Silver, founder of the registered children’s yoga school, Yoga Child Inc and children’s author of a beautiful series of story books based on Tich Nach Hahns’ teachings on mindfulness. I honestly don’t think many of the trainees in the room that first day, including myself, had specific goals or needs to become children’s yoga teachers … The training was offering far more than a new job opportunity and it was the essence beyond the course title that was leading us more and more to a new way of working with children and ourselves in a gentle yogic, mindful and extremely powerful way…
The course ended in the summer of 2014. We had learnt a lot. Gail Silver’s teachings and experience with children and mindfulness had inspired me to continue on a path I had not for one moment imagined taking when as a family, we left France in the winter of 2013 to begin a new adventure on a new continent!
I began working with children, introducing them to the power of gentle yoga and mindfulness as I had grown to know it over the past few months; in the simplest, most humble ways I could – the ways I had been taught; with no pretense and no frills, and an constant eye on my ego to ensure it was never allowed the satisfaction of presuming I had acquired all the knowledge required to begin working with children in this way. My aim was simply to enjoy sharing something precious I had been able to learn. I was a beginner, but I had something to pass on already, and I was excited to begin.
Until leaving the USA in the summer of 2015, I explored the beauty of yoga and mindfulness with children in various ways, working voluntarily in a whole range of places from a local pre-school to the magical Cynwd Station Café, the park, and my own children’s elementary school. A lovely family in Narberth opened their beautiful meditation space where I held a weekly Yoga and Mindfulness class for a group of 4th and 5th grade girls on Thursday evenings. Those girls extended my initial training in many ways, and I am forever grateful to them for their commitment to the classes and their patience and childhood open-mindedness each time I stumbled over attempts at ‘something new’ in class!
Since the end of August 2015 I have been back living in Strasbourg, France, with my husband and two children. My weekly yoga and mindfulness classes for children aged 7 to 11 as well as short courses for parents and 3 to 6 year olds have given me so much joy over the past couple of years. Each time we meet, I am constantly reminded of how powerful, healing, and very simple sitting mindfully with children can be. The yoga we practice is simple – I’m no expert; the mindfulness simple too – but it is always deep and meaningful. The results make me want to carry on …
Gail Silver is also the co-writer of the film Planting Seeds, The Power of Mindfulness and has has recently set up The School Mindfulness Project, a new Philadelphia based non profit organization (www.schoolmindfulness.org).
www.schoolmindfulness.org. J’ai complété ma première formation en yoga pour enfants en décembre 2014, aux Etats-Unis, avec le yogi et écrivain, Gail Silver (fondatrice de YOGA CHILD Inc, auteur du série Anh’s Anger pour enfants, et co-écrivain du film Planting Seeds, The Power of Mindfulness).