Wai Lana, host of the long-running PBS series Wai Lana Yoga and star of a dozen popular yoga videos, has made a yoga video especially for children ages 3 to 8. The video features Wai Lana and a group of kids of different ages pretending to be cobras, butterflies, and other animals and objects as they work through a series of beginning yoga poses. This video is a great way to get started with yoga.
Young children will enjoy Wai Lana’s playful suggestions of sounds to make with each pose; roaring in the lion pose will be a favorite. Kids will enjoy the exercises and the bouncy yoga dance at the end of the video while improving balance, coordination, strength, and flexibility. Yoga has been proven to have a calming effect on children and reduces stress, so while they play, kids will be discovering the benefits of yoga.
The video includes a short song animated with cartoons before each exercise, and each exercise is presented at a slow and gentle pace. The video is 60 minutes long, but can easily be stopped after any exercise and continued later. For children with a shorter attention span, the exercises can be stretched over several days, or even a week for the youngest children.
Despite the fun approach, Wai Lana careful and expertly presents each exercise so that children learn to do it the correct way. The children in the video do the poses with varying degrees of skill, which keeps the exercises from seeming too hard while still presenting good examples of how to do each pose.
This is a great family video, as adults can attempt the poses along with the children. Those new to yoga will find the exercises challenging but not so hard that they give up. Older children may find the cartoons and music too cloying, but will not be able to resist trying to show up their younger siblings and parents. (For those who only have children ages 10 and above, Wai Lana’s beginning yoga video would be a better choice.) Preschool and kindergarten teachers will love this video too—what a great way to get the wiggles out on a rainy day!
The complete kit includes the video, a kid-size yogi mat, a colorful poster with the 21 yoga exercises illustrated and explained, and a plastic tote that holds it all. The mat is big enough to be practical, and the poster is useful when you cannot play the video or if you just want to practice some of the poses. Highly recommended for ages 3-8.
—Awareness magazine, January/February 2004
