Body Positive by Donna Noble
I believe everyBODY is born yogi. Have you seen a baby effortlessly with their big toe in their mouth? Doing happy baby pose…
You often see children perform Corbra pose, where they are lying down on their stomachs and lift their heads up. Often they can be found sleeping in child’s pose.
Babies start their yoga journey with mudras – a sleeping baby is often observed with their hands in chin mudra (tip of the thumb and forefinger touching).
Or one that I myself did was sucking my thumb – not realising it was the Marudanda mudra (thumb pointing up and other fingers rolled in). These may look like innocent general gestures but they have the effect of stimulating different parts of the brain and body. For me it was a form of comfort, until I grew out of this habit.
Children continue to perform different asanas at different stages of their development? For instance, when learning to crawl and walk, they do cat stretch to strengthen their spines and when they’re learning to stand, they spend lots of time in ‘downward dog’ pose before getting on their feet.
Do you need any more convincing?
So why not let your children retain the gift of yoga, as it will help them to navigate this world with more simplicity and ease.
Research has shown that yoga and mindfulness improve mental health. Allows children to be more creative and retain their connection to their inner child. Helps with body image issue as they are taught to appreciate their body. Improves memory, concentration and reduce anxiety and stress. The list is endless.
This is why we are seeing an increasing number of schools introduce yoga and mindfulness in to the education system.
A lot of parents will invest in their child’s education by sending them to music lessons, playing golf and ruby. Why not add yoga to that list? Providing your child with invaluable tools to help them to deal with what ever life throws at them.
Yoga has transformed my life in so many ways so if I wish I had a time machine and could go back to when I was finding my asana, and continued this yoga journey my body and mind would have been a little less stiff.
So really we all do already possess a yoga body…
About Donna Noble
Donna Noble is a London based certified yoga specialist (Hatha, Bikram, Yoga For All and Aqua Yoga), a Body Positive advocate, Master NLP Practitioner and Wellbeing champion. She is also the Founder of Curvesomeyoga – a body positive movement. Donna has been practising yoga since the late 1990’s and has over 8+ years teaching experience. She is passionate about sharing the transformational benefits yoga and showing that yoga is for every BODY. Donna has taught Internationally in New York, Texas, India and all over the UK at workshop and wellbeing events. Her work has been featured and published in Om Yoga and Lifestyle Magazine, Yoga Magazine, Elephant Journal, Yoga International, The Guardian and blogs for Huff Post. With a background of 20 years working in the corporate environment, Donna is a well-known speaker at conferences and corporate events. She also had her own radio show on Natural Health Radio: The Noble Art of Wellbeing & Yoga. Donna is currently writing a book to be published in 2020.
ind out more about Donna and her work at: www.thenobleartofyoga.co.uk
Donna Noble is hosting CurveSomeyoga: Body Positive Yoga Workshop on 3rd November 2019- find tickets on Eventbrite.
Donna is also leading a tour in India in 2020 The Source of Yoga: A small Group tour to India. More information can be found at www.soulofindia.com
