This past year I decided that I would like to incorporate more spontaneity into my life. So I started with teaching — I thought that if I had a general idea of what I would like to teach my students, I could create, or we could co-create a practice, together. After all, life is a creation in process, and being attuned to and embracing improvisation, prepares us for living very presently, and riding all of life’s ups and downs with grace. So that I did!

I started this experiment about four months ago in a class that I teach to four tweens. They are lovely girls, and very excited to deepen their practice of yoga. I started going to the class with a general idea of what I’d like to teach, but no specific sequence or progression — I wanted to challenge myself to quickly think and act in a moment’s time to cater to their specific needs. I realize how important creative constraints are in life — in this particular example of teaching, I would introduce some warm up asanas, and then ask them what they had practiced during the week, and what they would like to work on in the class. Based on their responses, I would give myself 30 seconds to think of all the areas of their bodies and minds that needed to be receptive to openings to allow for the most authentic expressions of their asanas. And then, I co-created with them — it has been such a fun experiment full of giggles, rewinding, and even fast forwarding to more challenging poses.

About two weeks ago, one of the girls’ parents asked me to focus on helping the girls with their postures (specifically, slumping shoulders). During the ensuing class, I re-introduced Tadasana (Mountain Pose) and all of its alignment points, and had them walk in semi-straight lines in Tadasana. One of the girls said she felt like a zombie walking in this pose, so I coined it “zombie walking,” which later transmuted into “sophisticated zombie walking,” after I introduced the idea that an open and straight posture provides a perception of confidence. So these four girls were in giggles at their sophisticated zombie walking, and even started to incorporate zombie-like eye drooping and contorted mouths, ha!

In any case, today I checked in and asked them how their sophisticated zombie walking was going, and what they noticed, and several of them told me that they were more aware of when they slouched and that it takes practice to continue to maintain the alignment. Awareness is the first step, so I’m very happy that they are slowly incorporating these teachings! I continue to improvise with them, and they, as children, seem to be very open to it, as they are still young and in “wonder mode.”

While we did partner Navasana (boat) core exercises today, we again improvised in experiencing letting go of the partner hand hold (while still maintaining the partner foot connection) to see what free form Navasana crunches felt like — it was challenging but put everyone very much in the moment, as a very fine focus came into play while trying to work into this asana. It is this very improvisation that creates a focus-flow and feeling of being so very ALIVE! It is very special, and kids have a very unique ability to live in this space of the present moment, and experience it for everything that it is.