As a mom and educator, I spend a LOT of time with children. As a yoga instructor, I have been trained to see how energy is moving (or restricted) in people's bodies while they are in a pose. The combination of these two backgrounds makes every day an interesting adventure in being human.
During college I studied many theories of child development and educational philosophy. Is there really a pattern of development that all humans follow? I'm sure many professors and professionals in the educational and therapeutic fields could argue the pros and cons of these theories until they are blue in the face and never come to an agreement. I am not convinced that there is one perfect theory of child development, but I am sure of this: we all begin life with our bodies as a our tour guides.
In our bodies we travel through the world and begin to understand it and how we fit into it. As infants, we explore our worlds through movement experimentation, by hearing the tone of our mother's voice, placing our toes in our mouth, sucking on a sour lemon slice, holding tight to a strand of hair we find! We take in sensory input with our bodies and process it into motor output. This is our first learning and its true learning! We integrate information and then apply it to new situations -- it doesn't get much better than that on the learning continuum.
Our bodies are our first guides on our lifelong learning journey. They are wise. They are infallibly honest. They are our most loyal companions. I'm not sure why we ever stop trusting and connecting with these wise teachers, but many of us do. I know I did as a young adult. Experimenting and exploring my world through my body in yoga poses has been my path back to real growth, learning, and evolution as an adult. Maybe it could be yours, too.
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