The little fox and Omen: A visit to children’s yoga

Yoga is trendy. There are courses for adults everywhere. When Valentina Reineke was looking for a children’s course for her eleven-year-old daughter, she couldn’t find one. And then trained as a children’s yoga teacher herself.

Battenberg – Have you ever picked up a chestnut with your toes and passed it on to someone else? From foot to foot? Unusual and not that easy. Neele, Lina and Ella also find it. The three girls are clearly having fun with the little task that Valentina Reineke has given them. They keep trying until it works, and even try two chestnuts at the same time.

This afternoon’s children’s yoga in the Battenberg DRK family center is about autumn. Valentina Reineke, children’s and teens yoga teacher from Frankenberg, has prepared a few exercises for this.

Before things start in the small gym, the fox goes around in circles. Whoever has the little plush toy in their hand is their turn to tell the story. “How are you?” asks Valentina Reineke, and the three girls talk about school. Neele and Lina, both 8, wrote a German paper “that was a bit difficult”. But you are already looking forward to the autumn holidays. And Neele’s sister Ella (6) is doing well because she has arranged to meet a friend.

Stop dance with yoga exercises

Then the children find out what the pieces of paper that are spread out on the floor are all about. Each one features autumn motifs – a tree, an apple, a deer and a pumpkin, for example. Yoga exercises that the children already know are painted next to them. There is also a stop dance: Whenever the music from the small Bluetooth box stops, the girls should do the exercise they are currently doing.

“While adults do yoga to relax and stay physically fit, children learn the yoga postures, the asanas, in a playful way,” says Valentina Reineke in an interview with HNA after the yoga class.

“While adults do yoga to relax and stay physically fit, children learn the yoga postures, the asanas, in a playful way.”

The stop dance is followed by an autumn walk: the children put on rubber boots, hats and jackets in pantomime, jump in puddles, sway in the wind and lie down like chestnuts on the large gymnastics mat. Then the real chestnuts come into play. The girls smell it, touch it, try to balance it on their noses and then pass it around in a circle with their toes.

The girls try to pass chestnuts with their toes. © Paulus, Jörg

“The children want to have something to do and have variety while doing yoga, otherwise they would stop taking part in the class at some point,” explains Valentina Reineke, who has an eleven-year-old daughter herself.

For example, children’s yoga promotes mobility and improves concentration, it reduces stress and strengthens self-confidence and body awareness. And it is important to her that the children learn something during the lesson: for example, what there is in autumn and what a chestnut smells like.

After the lively autumn walk, a period of rest is in order again. “Feel into yourself,” says the yoga teacher. “What is your heart doing? Is it knocking quickly? Is it knocking slowly? Are you warm or cold?”

Then she does a breathing exercise with the children: they trace the spines of a painted hedgehog with their fingers and breathe in and out with each up and down. “It’s calming,” the girls note. “You can do the exercise if you’re excited,” says Valentina Reineke.

A hedgehog crawls on Lina’s back: Ella reenacts the autumn story that yoga teacher Valentina Reineke tells the children with her fingers on Lina’s back. © Paulus, Jörg

Things continue quietly – with an autumn massage for two. The yoga teacher tells a story and the children act it out with their hands on their partner’s back: how leaves fall, how a hedgehog pads around and how beetles crawl.

“Since you like painting so much, you can now paint your own autumn picture,” said Valentina Reineke at the end of the yoga class and handed out pens and paper. She also plays soothing music. The girls paint trees, hedgehogs and pumpkins and hum along quietly.

Finally, everyone sits back together in a circle and says goodbye, like in adult yoga, with the greeting Namaste and an Om, which for children is a small “Ömchen”.

Became a yoga teacher by chance

Valentina Reineke became a yoga teacher for children by chance: “When my daughter was underutilized during the Corona period, I tried to do yoga and relaxation exercises with her,” says the 41-year-old. “I looked for yoga courses for children – I found a lot of them for adults, but none for children.” When training for children’s yoga was offered in Marburg in 2023, Valentina Reineke took part. “As far as I know, I’m the only one in the Frankenberg area who currently offers this.”

She now gives children’s courses in Braunshausen and Battenberg. She has also done children’s yoga with the SG Eder footballers and in holiday care at the school in Hallenberg. As a rule, the children are between 6 and 12 years old, and the perfect group size is ten children. “The smaller the children are, the less able they are to concentrate,” Valentina Reineke has found.

In Battenberg, where she can use the rooms of the DRK family center free of charge, the course costs 30 euros per child per month; in Braunshausen, where she has to pay rent for the practice room, she takes 10 euros per hour. In November it is also offering parent-child courses in both locations (child plus parent, grandma, grandpa, godfather, etc.), for which there are still places available (entspannungswiese.de). (Jörg Paulus)

2024-10-09 06:01:00