Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Yo­ga can be fun and in­ter­ac­tive and en­cour­ages cre­ativ­i­ty in young chil­dren. Do­ing a mon­key pose, a tree pose or singing along to a chil­dren's song with ac­tions can help young­sters counter the pres­sures and stress­es ex­pe­ri­enced dai­ly in a fast-paced en­vi­ron­ment. If prac­tised at an ear­ly age, yo­ga will en­cour­age healthy lifestyles, a deep sense of ful­fil­ment, self-con­fi­dence and boost a child's body aware­ness.Irish-born Kather­ine Long has been a yo­ga in­struc­tor for the last four years. She op­er­ates Yo­ga 4 Youth at Gal­lus Street, Wood­brook, where she of­fers yo­ga to tots from ten months, teenagers and adults.

Long be­lieves chil­dren can build their con­fi­dence through yo­ga when pre­sent­ed to them in child-lan­guage.She said the chil­dren who at­tend her ses­sions know what they are about and have a cer­tain lev­el of con­fi­dence."Yo­ga gives them that con­fi­dence to ex­plore and ask ques­tions," Long said.Yo­ga orig­i­nat­ed in an­cient In­dia and is a San­skrit word which means to add, to join, to unite. On­line re­ports stat­ed that the num­ber of peo­ple who prac­tise some form of yo­ga in the Unit­ed States has grown from four mil­lion in 2001 to 20 mil­lion in 2011.Long's soft voice, pe­tite frame and calm dis­po­si­tion set the tone for Wednes­day's in­ter­view in the gar­den space at the back of the build­ing.She said, "I found yo­ga be­cause I want­ed a form of ex­er­cise. "I was go­ing through a dif­fi­cult time and I found that it re­al­ly helped me fig­ure out what was hap­pen­ing in my own life."

Yo­ga and chil­dren

She's been prac­tis­ing yo­ga for about 13 years and first taught it in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty of Bras­so Seco. So just why would an op­tometrist want to chan­nel all her en­er­gies on yo­ga?She said, "A few years ago I just sud­den­ly thought that I could teach yo­ga be­cause it's done so much for me."It's made me feel a lot more con­fi­dent, so there­fore I felt I would like oth­er peo­ple to feel the same way. So I ven­tured on a yo­ga teacher-train­ing pro­gramme which was to teach yo­ga to adults and that's how I first start­ed."But Long be­lieves her call­ing is to work with chil­dren. The moth­er of a teenage boy and girl stud­ied chil­dren's yo­ga and yo­ga ther­a­py for chil­dren abroad. She said she en­joyed work­ing with chil­dren and found it very re­ward­ing.

She ex­plained that with the "tots and ne­nen" who at­tend class­es on a Sat­ur­day, it was all about mu­sic and ac­tion. "We use a lot of mu­sic and we sing every­thing. They sing along.

"It's re­al­ly quite amaz­ing."They tell you what they want to do just by their ac­tions you know, be­cause they can't ver­balise every­thing at that age."Gen­er­al yo­ga class­es are held morn­ings and evenings with close to 70 chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ing on a week­ly ba­sis.Not to take away from oth­er phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties like swim­ming or track and field, Long said yo­ga had a lot more in­ter­ac­tion among the chil­dren in the class which doesn't hap­pen in all sports."We in­ter­act with them through pos­es but in a sto­ry fash­ion," she said.

Build­ing con­fi­dence

There's a lot of pres­sure on chil­dren in so­ci­ety. There's a lot of in­for­ma­tion and chil­dren do not know how to as­sim­i­late every­thing.Long thinks yo­ga em­pow­ers every­one to tune in and do what has to be done and not take in the "clut­ter" that comes from the out­side.She said, "Yo­ga brings cre­ative ways to de­vel­op con­fi­dence, trust, team work, fo­cus, con­cen­tra­tion, and a sense of com­mu­ni­ty, al­low­ing chil­dren to feel calm, teach­ing them how to re­lax and there­by build their self-es­teem, their self-con­trol and self-re­spect.

"Be­cause of the aware­ness of their bod­ies they make bet­ter choic­es about what they eat, how they live what they say, mak­ing them more aware."She said Yo­ga 4 Youth was a play on the word youth–you and youth. She said youth should be em­braced and main­tained.Long said she could make a dif­fer­ence with young peo­ple by up­lift­ing their con­fi­dence."Yo­ga helps the chil­dren to un­der­stand that there's more to what's put in front of them and gives them to con­fi­dence to find out what's their call­ing in life."

Yo­ga 4 Youth

22 Gal­lus Street, Wood­brook

yo­ga4youth@gmail.com

Tel: 290-YO­GA

www.face­book.com/yo­ga4youthtrinidad