Teaching Yoga to a High School PE Class

I was asked to do a yoga session for a PE class. They were learning about the yoga poses, physiology, muscles and bones and their movement. 

I teach yoga to adults, kids, elders, but high school was a whole new realm. You probably remember yourself in high school: don’t care about anything, acting cool, fitting in was everything.

I was wrong!

The high school kids I taught were very attentive, down to earth, and eager to learn. Of course, they have to be because they’re going to get graded at the end of the term, but that wasn’t it.

They were actually curious kids. 

I started off by …
giving my brief background and that I was also introduced to yoga in high school. I also explained that I'm here to teach them the asanas today, but yoga is a lifestyle with philosophical teachings, breathing, meditation, and asanas (or poses) is just one of the eight pillars of yoga. 

We went through…
a few basic poses that come out in sun salutation:

Adho Mukha Svanasana
Chaturanga Dandasana
Urdhva Mukha Svanasana
Virabhadrasana 1

Of course, I didn’t scare them with all the sanskrit words. LOL

We went over the alignment, internal/external rotations, major muscles and bone functions in each of the poses. We had students come and demonstrate, I adjusted, they asked questions and one hour zipped by!

My closing statement was: 

What I learned in high school ended up being my career, so listen and learn carefully in high school because it might end up being your career, too!

I had to say that. Haha.

Immediately after class, one girl came up to me and said:

That was such a nice way to start a Friday morning. It’s exactly what I needed. Thank you for all the tips and information. I wish every morning was like this. 

As I said, high school kids are awesome. 

Here are a few more reviews from other kids that the HS PE teacher sent me after the unit ended:

"Along with this after doing the yoga lesson with the instructor, I realized that I was doing some poses incorrectly and once I started doing them correctly it felt a lot more difficult and I was able to push myself harder."

-Student M

"I feel that I am the type of person that has a hard time putting in work into something that I do not have a “passion” for; however, nearing the end of the unit, I started to get more interested, and the yoga instructor really got me interested again. It really helped that somebody came in person and gave instructions in detail."

-Student K

"I felt like I improved the most when the yoga instructor came into our class to teach us directly. I was the first person to demonstrate(although slightly forced) but it was actually a great learning experience. After she would help us with the proper way to do the yoga poses, and I felt like that class was where I learned the most about the proper forms. During that class, I actually felt like I was pushed and stretching my body, doing a proper yoga workout."

-Student Y

Would I teach high school students again? Hell Yeah!