Surya Namaskara for Children

Surya Namaskara in the classroom
Today our children sit in overcrowded classrooms, cramped and bent over their books, their minds tired from too much intellectual activity. Education is taken to mean that we enter in institution in order to gain the intellectual skills and capacity for a job or profession. However, real education is not just for the fulfillment of external, social and economic commitments, but it is also for our inner understanding and the growth of our personality at all levels, physical, mental and spiritual.

Recently there has been a call by educators for increased depth and breadth to the education system. These people want the intuitive and creative side of a child's personality and mind developed, in order to redress the existing imbalances which may be the cause of many of our resent problems in life.

Surya Namaskara, nadi shodhana pranayama and gayatri mantra can be utilized to tap this potential and to develop not only the intellect but also the intuition. Thus balance is achieved.

Swami Yogabhakti Saraswati (Mlle M. Flack), founder of Satyanandashram, Paris and a teacher in the C.E.S. Condorcet High School, has made an extensive study of the use of Surya Namaskara in the classroom to bring the intellectual and intuitive sides of children into balance. She states:

"In the opinion of parents, children and teachers alike, teaching yoga practices such as Surya Namaskara to children has been a success in our school. Many parents have suggested that these practices which have already been seen to have a stabilizing effect on their children, should be continued at school. The only question raised here was that of training more teachers in these methods."

Already, teachers and principals throughout the world have taken up this work and begun to introduce Surya Namaskara and other relevant yoga practices into the school systems. Everywhere they are finding that a few minutes practice before the class, makes the children more eager to learn, attentive, receptive, responsive and communicative. Surya Namaskara is an excellent method to constructively utilize the exuberant physical energy that most children possess, so as to channel it towards physical and mental health.