我们的孩子面临这样的生活：父母忙碌、学校施压、课程繁重、视频游戏、眼花缭乱的购物和竞技体育等高速运转着的世界。我们通常认为这些对我们的孩子没有什么严重影响，但往往影响很大。我们孩子们生活中紧张的步伐可能对他们情绪的养成产生深远的影响，通常不会是比较好的影响。

Our children live in a hurry-up world of busy parents, school pressures, incessant lessons, video games, malls, and competitive sports. We usually don't think of these influences as stressful for our kids, but often they are. The bustling pace of our children's lives can have a profound effect on their innate joy—and usually not for the better.

我发现瑜伽可以帮助抵御这些压力。当孩子们学会自我保健、放松内心的实践技巧后，他们可以轻松地驾驭生活中的挑战。早期的瑜伽鼓励自尊和身体意识养成，身体活动是非竞争性的。促进合作和同情（替代敌对），是给我们的孩子一个伟大的礼物。

I have found that yoga can help counter these pressures. When children learn techniques for self-health, relaxation, and inner fulfillment, they can navigate life's challenges with a little more ease. Yoga at an early age encourages self-esteem and body awareness with a physical activity that's noncompetitive. Fostering cooperation and compassion—instead of opposition—is a great gift to give our children.

儿童从瑜伽中获得巨大的收益。在身体上，它增强了他们的灵活性、力量、协调和身体意识。另外，他们的集中力、情绪平静和放松的感觉也有所改善。做瑜伽，孩子们锻炼、玩耍与内在的自我联系更深刻，并与自己的周围环境保持亲密的关系。瑜伽可以把孩子们的内心表现出来。

Children derive enormous benefits from yoga. Physically, it enhances their flexibility, strength, coordination, and body awareness. In addition, their concentration and sense of calmness and relaxation improves. Doing yoga, children exercise, play, connect more deeply with the inner self, and develop an intimate relationship with the natural world that surrounds them. Yoga brings that marvelous inner light that all children have to the surface.

当瑜伽师几千年前开发了瑜伽体式时，他们仍然靠近自然世界，用动物和植物灵感：蝎子的刺伤、天鹅的恩典、树木的身材。当孩子们模仿大自然的运动和声音时，他们有机会进入另一个人的想象，并想象其性质。当他们以狮子的姿势（Simhasana）为例时，他们不仅体验到狮子的力量和行为，而且体验到自己的权力意识：何时进攻，何时退缩。身体运动向孩子们介绍瑜伽的真实意义：联合、表达和荣誉，并且在精致的生活网络中独一无二。

When yogis developed the asanas many thousands of years ago, they still lived close to the natural world and used animals and plants for inspiration—the sting of a scorpion, the grace of a swan, the grounded stature of a tree. When children imitate the movements and sounds of nature, they have a chance to get inside another being and imagine taking on its qualities. When they assume the pose of the lion (Simhasana) for example, they experience not only the power and behavior of the lion, but also their own sense of power: when to be aggressive, when to retreat. The physical movements introduce kids to yoga's true meaning: union, expression, and honor for oneself and one's part in the delicate web of life.

与孩子一起瑜伽提供了交流智慧，分享美好时光的许多可能性。为终身实践奠定基础，并将继续深化。所有这些都需要成人的一点灵活性，因为当我第一次开始向学龄前儿童教学练习时，发现儿童瑜伽与成人瑜伽完全不同。

Yoga with children offers many possibilities to exchange wisdom, share good times, and lay the foundation for a lifelong practice that will continue to deepen. All that's needed is a little flexibility on the adult's part because, as I quickly found out when I first started teaching the practice to preschoolers, yoga for children is quite different than yoga for adults.

六年前，我第一次在当地的蒙台梭利学校为孩子们教瑜伽。我满怀期待，我有信心 ——毕竟，我已经为教成人瑜伽很长时间。我自己有两个孩子，并在洛杉矶各个学校教过几年的创作写作。但经过两班三至六岁的班级，我不得不认真并重新评估我的做法。我需要学习放松（我多年来一直在传道的习惯），我期望的是什么，而不仅是教瑜伽。

Six years ago, I had my first experience teaching yoga to kids at a local Montessori school. I looked forward to the opportunity with confidence—after all, I'd been teaching yoga to adults for quite a while, had two young children of my own, and had taught creative writing for several years in various Los Angeles schools. But after two classes with a group of 3 to 6-year-olds, I had to seriously reevaluate my approach. I needed to learn to let go (the very practice I had been preaching for years) of my agenda and my expectations of what yoga is and is not.

当我开始尊重孩子们的先天智慧，并学会根据他们的方式去指导他们时，我们开始共同创建我们的课程。我们使用瑜珈伞作为探索许多其他领域的跳板，例如：动物的适应性和行为、音乐和演奏乐器、讲故事、绘画，以及我们在一起的时间变成一个真正的跨学科的学习方法。我们一起在我们的身体和心灵中流传故事，这些只能发生在小孩的游戏中。

When I began to honor the children's innate intelligence and tune in to how they were instructing me to instruct them, we began to co-create our classes. We used the yoga asanas as a springboard for exploration of many other areas—animal adaptations and behavior, music and playing instruments, storytelling, drawing—and our time together became a truly interdisciplinary approach to learning. Together we wove stories with our bodies and minds in a flow that could only happen in child's play.

孩子们开始叫我瑜伽太太，我叫他们瑜伽小孩。我们继续一起工作，一起玩，直到我们的作品开始成为一个名为YogaKids的节目。该程序结合了专门为儿童设计的瑜伽技术，使用Howard Gardner博士的多重智能理论。加德纳，哈佛大学教育研究科教育的作者和教授，描述了我们所有人的八项智慧：语言智能、数学逻辑智能、空间智能、身体运动智能、音乐智能、人际智能、自我认知智能、自然认知智能。并强调儿童应该拥有更多机会发展和体现这八大智能。

The kids began to call me Mrs. Yoga, and I called them Yoga Kids. We continued to work and play together until our creations bloomed into a program called YogaKids. The program combines yogic techniques designed especially for children using Dr. Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. Gardner, an author and professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, describes eight intelligences innate in all of us—linguistic, logical, visual, musical, kinesthetic, naturalistic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal—and emphasizes that children should be given the opportunity to develop and embody as many of these as possible.

按照这个理论，瑜伽师将讲故事、游戏、音乐、语言和其他艺术整合成一个完整的课程，让“整个孩子”成为一门课。我们采用生态学、解剖学、营养学和生活教训，反映相互依赖，一致和乐趣的瑜伽原理。最重要的是，我们的计划以一种尊重儿童学习习惯的方式参与整个思想、身体和精神。

In keeping with this theory, YogaKids integrates storytelling, games, music, language, and other arts into a complete curriculum that engages the "whole child." We employ ecology, anatomy, nutrition, and life lessons that echo yogic principles of interdependence, oneness, and fun. Most of all, our program engages the entire mind, body, and spirit in a way that honors all the ways children learn.

如果您打算向孩子们教瑜伽，那么有一些常识可以帮助您增加体验。孩子们面临的最大挑战就是要长时间集中注意力。教他们瑜伽的好处：静止，平衡，灵活，重点，和平，恩典，连接，健康和福祉。幸运的是，大多数孩子喜欢说话，他们喜欢行动，两者都可以在瑜伽中发生。孩子们将抓住机会，承担动物、树木、花卉、战士的角色。你的角色是退后一步，让他们在狗姿势中吠叫，在眼镜蛇中嘶嘶声，并在猫伸展下喵喵叫。他们也可以背诵ABCs或123s，因为他们正在持有姿势。声音对于儿童来说是一个很好的释放，并为瑜伽体验增添了听觉层面。

If you're planning to teach yoga to kids, there are a few general things to know that will enhance your experience. The greatest challenge with children is to hold their attention long enough to teach them the benefits of yoga: stillness, balance, flexibility, focus, peace, grace, connection, health, and well-being. Luckily, most children love to talk, and they love to move—both of which can happen in yoga. Children will jump at the chance to assume the role of animals, trees, flowers, warriors. Your role is to step back and allow them to bark in the Dog Pose, hiss in the cobra, and meow in cat stretch. They can also recite the ABCs or 123s as they are holding poses. Sound is a great release for children and adds an auditory dimension to the physical experience of yoga.

孩子们需要自己发现世界。告诉他们更加努力、做得更好、或者做某种方式，对他们来说不是最好的方法。相反，为他们提供一个有爱心，反应灵敏的创造性环境，以发现自己的真理。当他们执行各种动物和自然时呈现的风格，是他们心灵加深意识的过程。

Children need to discover the world on their own. Telling them to think harder, do it better, or be a certain way because it's good for them is not the optimal way. Instead, provide a loving, responsive, creative environment for them to uncover their own truths. As they perform the various animal and nature asanas, engage their minds to deepen their awareness. When they're snakes (Bhujangasana), invite them to really imagine that they're just a long spine with no arms and legs. Could you still run or climb a tree? In Tree Pose (Vrksasana), ask them to imagine being a giant oak, with roots growing out of the bottoms of their feet. Could you stay in the same position for 100 years? If you were to be chopped down, would that be OK? Would it hurt?

当他们像狗一样伸展，想火烈鸟一样平衡站立，像兔子一样呼吸，或像树一样坚强而高大，它们正在使他们的宏观环境与身体的缩影相连。尊重一切生命的重要性和相互依存的原则变得显而易见。孩子们开始明白，我们都是用同样的“东西”制成的。我们只是不同的存在形式。

When they stretch like a dog, balance like a flamingo, breathe like a bunny, or stand strong and tall like a tree, they are making a connection between the macrocosm of their environment and the microcosm of their bodies. The importance of reverence for all life and the principle of interdependence becomes apparent. Children begin to understand that we are all made of the same "stuff." We're just in different forms.

认为自己是辅导者而不是老师。引导你的孩子，同时打开你的心，让他们引导你。他们无疑会邀请你进入一个无限的奇迹和探索世界。如果你选择加入他们，教学学习过程将不断互惠，并为每个人创造表达自己、共同成长的机会。

Think of yourself as a facilitator rather than a teacher. Guide your children while simultaneously opening your heart and letting them guide you. They'll no doubt invite you into a boundless world of wonder and exploration. If you choose to join them, the teaching/learning process will be continually reciprocal and provide an opportunity for everyone to create, express themselves, and grow together.