Animal-Inspired Poses

For our tenth Mind Move Make class of Session 3, we started with relaxation time!  While laying on their yoga mats, I asked the students to imagine walking through the habitat of the animal guide that they chose during last class.  I asked them to imagine sounds they might hear in the habitat and what the temperature would feel like.  Then I explained that they could see their animal in the distance and to imagine it approaching.  To their surprise, the animal can talk!  I asked the students to think about what message their animal guide might have for them.

After discussing the relaxation time, we began to move!  I led the students through a few movements to warm up the body.  After that, I explained that everyone was going to invent a yoga pose that represented his or her animal guide.  The students had about ten minutes to practice the new movement before presenting it to everyone else in class.  Then the other classmates had to guess which animal was being interpreted through the movement.  As a class, we tried to imitate each invented pose that was inspired by an animal.  It was fun and humbling to try the poses the students invented.

Art-wise, many of the students began incorporating color into their drawings.  Most of the children are dividing their artwork into three sections: self-portrait, animal drawing, and a combination between themselves and their spirit animal.  Please click on Listening to the Animals to see the artwork we looked at for inspiration.  Here are some of the students' works-in-progress: