YOGA: Yoga is used to stretch the body and calm the mind in preparation for other activities and games.  Yoga provides many health benefits.  Physically it will enhance a child’s flexibility, coordination, strength and body awareness.  Mentally, it will enhance their ability to calm themselves and concentrate.  Yoga for children is very different than yoga for adults!  While doing yoga, children exercise, play and connect with the world around them.  The children will become co-creators of the exercises!  Stories will be told, games will be played and the children will be given the opportunity to create, share and explore.

**Included in all classes:  THE BRAIN DANCE: Developed by Anne Green Gilbert, The Brain Dance is a series of exercises that we use during our warm-ups. It is comprised of eight fundamental movement patterns that humans move through in the first year of life (breath, tactile, core-distal, head-tail, upper-lower, body-side, cross-lateral, vestibular). These patterns wire the central nervous system laying the foundation for sensory-motor development and life long learning. These patterns are crucial to the wiring of our central nervous system! As babies, we did these movements on our tummies.  However, cycling through these patterns at any age has been found to be beneficial for brain reorganization, oxygenation, and recuperation.  The Brain Dance may correct flaws in a person’s perceptual process and reorganize the central nervous system so to develop better proprioception, balance, attention, memory, eye-tracking, behavior, sensory integration, and motor skills. 

Participating in a Sweet Pea Fitness class will expose your child to: 

• Deep breathing (Did you know the brain consumes one-fifth of the body’s oxygen and deep breathing is essential for a fully functioning body and brain?)
• Awakening of the  muscular systems that support the body (this will lead to correct use of body structures and help children to be injury-free and move with ease and coordination)
• Integration of body and mind (each pattern underlies and supports the next pattern and when done in succession helps to wire the brain and body).  

The Brain Dance is a truly amazing experience.  Please consider enrolling your child in Sweet Pea Fitness…it is so much more than just fun!