tinytoesyoga: obstacle course!

By far one of the kids' favorite games we play is the

Yoga Obstacle Course.

It's so great because the possibilities are endless. It can't get old. I set up mats all around the room, and each mat has it's own activity.

Some of my favorites are:

ROPE WALK

Lay a strap or rope on the floor and walk across it as if it were a tightrope high in the air. They can walk across regularly, or do Warrior III across.

L-HANDSTAND WALK

Standing with heels against the baseboards, come into down dog. Place hands on the floor and lift one leg at a time, pressing soles of feet into the wall. Now "walk" from one side of the mat to the other.

RIVER WALK

Place yoga blocks on a mat, pretending the mat is a river and the blocks are the tops of rocks, and hop from stone to stone.

BLIND TREE

Kids get into tree pose and practice holding the pose with their eyes closed.

BEAN BAG TOSS

One of my students made this game up and it's brilliant! Using our bean bag eye bags that we use in Savasana, he sat in butterfly pose (baddha konasana) and placed the bean bags on one side of him and an empty basket on the other side. He put a bag on his knee/inner thigh and catapulted it into the empty basket.

HULA HOOP BOAT ROW

Have kids sit in boat pose on a mat and hold a hula hoop in front of them, so that their raised legs are through the center of the hoop. Now they can pulse back and forth from low boat to high boat, moving their legs in and out of the hoop as they do so.

FLASHCARDS ON A MAT

I placed my yoga pose flashcards face down on a mat and the kids simply have to blindly choose a card and do the pose.

TOEGA

The kids must pick up fuzzy pom pom balls using only their toes, and place them in a cup.

SUN SALUTATIONS

Let each kid lead themselves through one Sun Salutation, emphasizing moving with the breath.

PLOW BALL PASS

Here they can lay on the mat and they have a ball or block placed on the bottom of the mat near their ankles. They grab the ball (or block) with their feet and do plough pose, carrying the ball (or block) up and over, setting it down behind them near their heads.

It's also really fun to create an action that they must do to get from one mat to another. For instance they could walk in down dog to get around the room. Or they could crab walk in reverse table top. frog jump or hop around in tree pose from one mat to another.

I also love to create a DOWN DOG TUNNEL at the end of the obstacle course. The first one through the course gets into down dog and waits. As soon as another yogi gets to the end of the course, that second yogi crawls under the first doggie and gets into down dog right next to them. Then the third and the fourth, until the whole class is in a side by side down dog, with the last player in the line crawling under everyone to get to the front.