YOGA Frogs

We are becoming a family of Yoga Frogs. Little Frog's Auntie M is a few hours shy of becoming certified as a yoga instructor. She is hoping to work with Little Frog this summer. I've dabbled in yoga for years - never finding the time to make it a part of my regular routine - something I am still trying to do this year (belated new year's resolution). Diva Frog has never taken a yoga class, but has learned several poses in her ballet and gymnastics classes. She can also put her foot straight up over her head with very little effort. Little Frog's Grandma took her first yoga class last week (and her second one today). So it was not a stretch (sorry about that) when I suggested that yoga be part of Little Frog's IEP. Fortunately for me we have an amazing new physical therapist at school. He is young, quiet and exudes calm. He is very knowledgeable about sensory processing issues and has already begun to use Little Frog's physical therapy time to work on them. When I got a copy of the draft IEP, he had added imitating a yoga pose as a goal to address imitation skills, complex gross motor planing, and body awareness. YEAH!

Today, after the IEP meeting I told him that I had started working on a short yoga sequence with Little Frog: Mountain Pose, Forward Fold, Lung, Downward Dog, Cow Pose, Child's Pose, reverse the sequence back to Mountain Pose. Little Frog and I worked on imitating Mountain Pose, the beginning and the end of the sequence. Beyond that, I modeled the sequence over and over while Little Frog watched from his swing. Within six repetitions, he knew when the sequence ended and waited until I returned to Mountain Pose to request another push on the swing.

Little Frog's Physical Therapist said he had given it some thought and wanted me to add another pose to the sequence, one that would be challenging but not unfamiliar and would give Little Frog a sense of his body. He asked me to add Frog Pose - how appropriate!

Second Chakra Excercise - Frog Pose
1. Come into a squat, up on the yoes, pressing your heels together.
Have the knees bent and spread apart, and the buttocks resting on the heels, which are off the ground.
2. Place the fingertips on the floor between the spread knees.
3. Inhale and keep the fingertips on the ground. Lean into your hands and push up, straightening your legs. The buttocks will raise in the air, while the head goes down. Try to bring the nose as close to the knees as posssible.
4. Exhale, come back down, letting the buttocks strike the heels. The inhale and exhale should be powerful.
5. Start off with eleven frogs at a time, and build up to twenty-six, fifty-four, and eventuall one hundred and eight frogs.