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March 19, 2007 10:48 am
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Photos
Erica Mihok/New Castle News
Erica Mihok/New Castle News
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Editor's notes: With photos
Yoga training becomes a family affair
The word “nameste,” meaning “the light in me honors the light in you” is commonly used in traditional yoga classes, but Zarlingo gave it a twist. She greeted her students with “Mamaste,” which she explained means “The Mama in me honors the Mama in you.”
By LAURA MILOSER
CNHI News Service
NEW CASTLE, Pa. — A class usually experienced by adults can now be shared with children.
Itsy Bitsy Yoga allows parents to practice yoga poses while letting their child imitate and experience yoga on his or her own.
The classes for parents and their children ages 22 months through 4 years of age have begun at the Villa Maria Community Center in New Bedford.
Diane Zarlingo, co-owner of Mama and Me, began the morning class with a catch-up and get-to-know-each-other session.
She advised the mothers, “Feel free to let them (the children) wonder. This is a safe environment.”
The word “nameste,” meaning “the light in me honors the light in you” is commonly used in traditional yoga classes, but Zarlingo gave it a twist. She greeted her students with “Mamaste,” which she explained means “The Mama in me honors the Mama in you.”
Zarlingo said the class would attempt “to stimulate every sense.” She sprayed an aromatic banana spray into the air as she had the children walk like apes to their mothers, who were waiting for them on their yoga mats.
The children were eager to participate in the next exercise after they were each handed a ball.
“We are going on a journey around the world,” Zarlingo told them as she had the participants stretch to the North and South poles and various other places around the world. “We always come back home to our hearts,” she finished, holding the ball at her chest.
A stock pot was located in the middle of the room. She told the group, “We are going to make soup.” She had the children pick a letter out of the pot and match it with a yoga pose hanging around the room.
This was how the children were introduced to some of the yoga poses they practiced with their mothers.
Some of the children interacted with each other while others took a step back to evaluate what they were experiencing for the first time.
“To an outsider this may look chaotic, but they (the children) are interacting together and kind of having their own communication through their body language,” Zarlingo said.
Parents and grandparents attended the Villa Maria class from Shenango Township, Mahoningtown, and Poland, Lowellville, and Boardman, Ohio.
Millie Sturm of Lowellville, Ohio, a former Villa Maria employee, attended with her energetic three-year-old grandson, Antonio.
“I was looking for something to channel his energy,” Sturm said.
At the end of the one-hour class, stickers were passed out to everyone to be placed on their first finger and thumb.
Zarlingo asked the group to be very quiet, place the sticker fingers together with hands on their legs, and eyes closed. “Please say, ‘me’.”
“This is a way we connect with ourselves.” Zarlingo told the group. “You can also do this at home when you need to re-group,” she added.
After class she said, “This was wonderful, so calming. It really is a kind of beautiful calming.”
Juliane Arena, marketing director for the Villa Maria Community Center, said the Villa supports women’s programs, and the Itsy Bitsy Yoga is an extension of that programming.
Laura Miloser writes for the New Castle (Pa.) News.
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