Strange Days Indeed

It had been an unusual day from the start.

First, there was the hail. Then, there was the pizza. And then, at last, there was the yoga.

The hail that morning had been predicted, but it never seems to matter how prepared you are for this particular weather event—it’s always surprising. I opened the door to my back deck and stared into the spectacle. The hail chunks were so big they leaped back up from the wooden slats, on impact, like they were made of rubber.

The pizza was every bit as startling, if not so naturally occurring. There were two slices of the stuff—pepperoni, for sure; maybe mushrooms, too—waiting for us, on paper plates, on the front porch that day. There was no explanation for this culinary mystery and, after puzzling over it for several minutes, we chose at last to let it go. Meanwhile, Luther, the consumptive miniature schnauzer with whom we share our home, enjoyed a special breakfast.

And so it is that we reach the third extraordinary incident of that extraordinary morning: the extraordinary sight of my six-year-old daughter performing yoga in the family room.

This girl, who had never expressed so much as a fleeting interest in the intense activity she had so often seen occupy her mother, was deeply engaged in a parade of asana. And she was having a blast.

Introducing a life of yoga to children—such that the precedent is set, the habits are formed and the proper physical positioning is achieved—is not a new idea. In fact, the practice of children performing yoga is as old as the discipline itself. But it is, I can report with conviction, an entirely novel phenomenon inside my home.

I can imagine that, if a child was schooled in the benefits of yogic exercises from a young age, she would endure less wavering in the progress of her life. Her yoga practices would provide a kind of foundation that’s as much a springing-off point as it is a place to which one might blissfully retreat. She would be immediately equipped with the tools to centre herself, to make contact with her spirit, to massage anxieties into limber and flexed opportunities.

She would, too, enjoy a supple, natural flexibility to her muscles and limbs that would set her up for superstardom in the school gymnasium.

As I watched my little girl stretch her sweet body into the form of a cat, a dog, a tree, it struck me how well suited this practice actually is for little kids. Kai likes nothing better than make-believe and if it’s a physical as well as a mental exercise, so much the better.

But best of all that morning (natural phenomena aside) was the witness it invited me to bear of my little hellion achieving a rare stillness. As her sweet freckled face grew intense with the effort, I saw a side of my daughter that was previously unrevealed. Her powers of concentration were spectacular; her ability to hold a pose unprecedented. “Breathe,” I urged at one point, but otherwise kept silent.

This rare sight had the others beat. The gifts of hail and pizza had nothing on the gift I received from my newly yogic little girl.