"I am happy to be me." A group of sixth grade Ridgewood girls repeated these six simple but empowering words at a very special yoga class held at Flow Yoga Studio in Ho-Ho-Kus recently. Yoga instructor Karen Dillon was using the power of this age-old practice to help teach these middle schoolers how to turn inward to accept themselves for who they are, just the way they are. The class, a Mother/Daughter fundraising event, benefited Yogis Heart, an organization started by Ridgewood teacher Trella Dolgin, which offers yoga scholarships to young adults in financial need.

Yoga's mind/body/spirit connection makes it the perfect activity for pre-teens starting to feel the social pressures of both making friends and making the right choices. "Kids have so many more pressures growing up than we did," says Karen Dillon. "I have such empathy for them and in my class I want them to know truly and simply that they are OK just the way they are." The yoga practice Karen uses teaches mindfulness, she says. "In each of my classes I reinforce the idea of allowing yoga to help you be aware of your thoughts and to be mindful of your attitude and actions." And at this age, she says, it can help them navigate through an awkward and confusing time. "I teach them to come to their yoga mat for comfort, peace and strength. I create a safe space for my students to turn inward and be themselves, to not pretend and to not feel any pressures."

"I like yoga because it clears and relaxes my body and mind," says Julia Kelly, 6th grade.

The Mother/Daughter class was organized by Ridgewood's Lori Colin, who along with her husband David is a partner at Flow and a sixth grade mom as well. Also in attendance were Trella Dolgin from Yogis Heart and Bianca Valentini, 20, a scholarship recipient from Asbury Park.

"At this age they're starting to pull away from us," says Lori. "And I thought this class would be a great opportunity to turn off social media, log off of Instagram and learn some poses with their moms and their friends." The event raised money for future scholarships for Yogis Heart.

"Yoga gives me time to relax," says Danielle Poole, 6th grade.

Trella, a 6th grade science teacher at Benjamin Franklin Middle School and a yoga teacher herself, sees firsthand how pre-teens and teenagers, especially girls, often view themselves as less than perfect. "I see it every day at school. They sit in class, looking at everyone else thinking they must have it all together, when in reality everyone in the room is thinking the same thing about themselves." Seeing them struggle through high school and then with the pressures of college and knowing how yoga changed her own life, Trella helped form Yogis Heart, which provides yearly unlimited yoga scholarships to young people between the ages of 15 and 25 who want to practice yoga but need financial assistance. "Yoga helps you focus, it helps with stress and the pressures young people are dealing with," she says. "It transformed my life."

"Yoga showed me how to concentrate on letting all of the bad thoughts leave my head and I got to do it with my friends around," says Zoe Kay, 6th grade.

The goal that day was to let the girls have fun, give them some important tools and teach them that giving back to the community benefits everyone. But best of all is learning the empowerment that yoga brings, says Trella: "'When I move my body on my mat it's my place and I'm perfect exactly as I am, I'm OK in my body and I'm proud to be me just as I am.' That's something yoga automatically does. It's amazing."

"I like yoga because it inspires me to be better," says Cristina Formichella, 6th grade.

See the rest here:
Yoga for teens yields powerful and positive results