"I'm Being Quiet as a Mouse!"


On Children and Yoga.
Anyone who reads my site on a regular basis should be disabused by now of the notion that Yoga is always solemn and serious. However, yesterday morning my friend Sharon and I took fractured, laughing Yoga silliness to a new level.

My friend's four-year-old daughter Annabelle was hopping about the house when I got there, excited by the snow, the fact that there was no school, and Mommy's early-morning visitor. Seeing my tank top as I shed layers of fleece and got ready to start a sun salutation, she tore off, announcing she was going to find her own "strap" to wear. She roared back in, proudly displaying her pink tank, trailing her baby doll by the arm. Sharon and I chatted as we moved, with the occasional interpolation of Annabelle's excited, high-pitched voice. "Down dog!" "What's that pose?" "I'm being quiet as a mouse!" (She was a bit baffled when I noted that if she was telling us how quiet she was, she wasn't being quiet. I refrained from using the term "ipso facto," even though it would amuse me to know I have taught a four-year-old a bit of Latin legalese.)

As I cradled my lower leg and foot in my arms, stretching the outside of my hip, Annabelle's baby doll got deposited in the anatomical crib. I have no idea why none of these irruptions caused me to get frustrated or irritated, but they didn't. As we mostly ignored her, she finally wandered off to bug her big brother or watch cartoons with her dad. As I lay in savasana, though, I heard the door softly open behind me. Quiet as a mouse, Annabelle had crept in to see what we were doing. Equally softly, she tiptoed out again, and with her went the raucous energy that she had brought to our practice for that day.
Posted: Friday - February 25, 2005 at 07:57 AM         | |

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