Yoga & Tai Chi

In recognition of April as National Youth Sports Safety Month, MomsTeam is again asking our friends in the health, fitness, nutrition and athletic training communities to write blogs answering two questions: first, how or why did they get into their field, and second, how have they made a difference in the life of a youth athlete in the past year.

Today, we hear from certified yoga instructor, Deb Bowen. 

Most of us know by now that yoga is good for your body and can keep you strong and flexible. John de Kadt (the gentleman in the video below) addresses something that I feel has become a major source of stress physically, mentally, emotionally, and definitely neurologically in the children of the world today: overstimulation.

Many adults I spoke with at the Wanderlust Festival this summer in Stratton, Vermont were athletes growing up. When I asked them how their lives would have been different had they practiced yoga as children, they all agreed that they would likely have discovered their strengths as athletes and as individuals in a more gentle and less competitive way.

In today’s world of youth organized sports, much of the focus is on winning, moving fast and being the best. Many of these goals come from outside pressures of parents, coaches and society. Yoga dissolves the external pressures to perform at a fast pace, allowing participants to slow down and realize that they are perfect exactly where and how they are, in the moment.

This is the start of a 5 part series of videos recorded while representing momsTEAM at the Wanderlust Festival in Stratton, Vermont. My hope is to inspire you to experience yoga as a family. Our world is moving so fast these days. Parents are constantly running their children from game to game, friends' houses, extracurricular activities, and appointments. When we are moving so fast we aren't always aware of what is happening within our bodies. Taking time daily to slow down and go inward has many positive attributes for the mind, body and Spirit. Knowing what benefits yoga is bringing to the hundreds of thousands of adults worldwide, it only makes sense that we would want to share this gift with our children.