The Lovefest Continues with our beautiful kids yoga instructor, Jaime......
Jaime fell in love with yoga in 2004 when her beautiful friend, Robin Diamond,
introduced her to Naturally Yoga after she injured her back while shoveling snow.
Yoga helped her to heal her back and so much more, and she has been hooked
ever since. Coming from a broadcasting background, she also found yoga to be
wonderfully healthy way to find balance and equanimity even during life's most
stressful moments.
Jaime spent 16 years as a video producer/editor, including eight years producing
educational videos, promotional films and TV Public Service Announcements for
the National Headquarters of Girl Scouts of the USA in Manhattan before starting
a family. It was during these years that she discovered her passion for working
with children. So, when she learned about NY's teacher training for children's
yoga in 2005, she enrolled immediately and began teaching children's yoga shortly
thereafter.
She went on to complete her 200 hour yoga teacher training with our amazing
gurus, Sheryl and Neil Edsall at Naturally Yoga in 2007, and her 500 hour training
in Yoga Therapy with both Joseph and Lillian LePage of Integrative Yoga Therapy
at Kripalu and with Maria KaliMa of Functional Yoga Therapy in Tucson AZ in 2012.
She also holds certifications from Next Generation Yoga and Baby Om Yoga in
New York City and is working on her 1000 hour Certification with Integrative Yoga
Therapy.
Through her studies in Yoga Therapy, Jaime's has expanded her application of
yoga therapeutics to address health issues through the five Koshas. This model
facilitates healing at all levels of a person including: Annamayakosha (Physical Body),
Pranamayakosha (Energy body), Manomayakosha (Psycho-emotional Body),
Vijnyanamayakosha (Wisdom Body), and Anandamayakosha (Bliss Body).
True healing occurs when yoga therapy brings balance to all of these levels of
being.
Jaime believes that by cultivating our ability to look at life and nature with the
wonder and innocence of a child, yoga helps to broaden our awareness and deepen
our sensitivity to ourselves and to the world around us, regardless of our age. As
we move toward becoming one in body, mind, and spirit, we are better able to
connect with our true nature and with the greater energy that surrounds and
unifies us all.
Jaime's specializes with great joy in teaching children's yoga classes. She sees
yoga for children as an extraordinary educational venue. She writes:
"Yoga has numerous benefits for children. It increases their self-awareness,
builds their self-esteem and strengthens their bodies. A yoga class for children
is different from an adult yoga class. A class for children is full of discovery,
imagination, fun, adventure and always gentle relaxation.
Each of our classes has a theme such as taking care of the earth, saying thank you
to the sun, trips to the ocean, Hawaii, the Amazon Rain Forest, India, or Africa, a
celebration of the seasons, or the idea of "peace", and many others. We learn, in
an age appropriate way, about other cultures, geography, history, ecology and
extraordinary people through such stories as "Wangari's Trees of Peace" about
Nobel Prize winner, Wangari Maathai who saved her land of Kenya and others like
it from deforestation through her Green Belt Tree Planting Movement, and
"Me, Jane" the true story of Primatologist, Dr. Jane Goodall and her groundbreaking
work with Chimpanzees in Tanzania. As our yoga journeys and stories unfold, the
children have input and opportunities to create. For instance, if they imagine they
see an animal in Africa for which there is no traditional yoga pose, I will ask them
to show us what they imagine that animal would look like in yoga and share it with
the class.
Through yoga, we learn to respect ourselves and others, and to appreciate diverse
cultures. We share invigorating poses and become part of imaginative stories as
we stretch our bodies and learn to relax. Music, art, books, and yoga games are
interwoven throughout our classes, as we develop our flexibility, balance, focus
and confidence. "
Jaime's heart is filled with gratitude for her teachers and the many gifts they
have shared with her and for privilege of being able to practice and teach yoga
to people of all ages in a variety of settings. She is also grateful to her students
for the gifts and experiences they have shared which have enriched their
practices and her own.
Jaime has just published a first children's book, a delightful story, written by her
late father entitled "Tommy and the Cricket" that teaches a valuable lesson about
empathy, acceptance, friendship, and respect for the lives of all creatures. The
book will be coming out this fall and is sure to be a theme for one of Jaime's kids
classes. After publishing selected writings of her treasured father and cherished
mother, she plans to publish her own children's stories for yoga and beyond.....
"One of the best ways to glimpse immortality in this life is to have our words,
music, art or creations of any kind, touch the hearts of those who live on after
us ...
Remember to share your gifts!"
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