SAN FRANCISCO — It is getting close to lunchtime, and Cathy Klein's second-grade class at Daniel Webster Elementary School is feeling a little wiggly.
When Klein asks them to put down their pencils and find some personal space around the classroom for yoga, they jump to it. Soon they are breathing deeply, in through their noses and out through their mouths. With determined looks, they are earnestly stretching and balancing their little bodies into poses named for animals and shapes: new moon, kangaroo, seahorse and ostrich.
When they stretch out on the floor 20 minutes later for the final cocoon pose, a resting position, their wiggles are gone. They are calm and focused, and they sit cross-legged and smiling to answer questions about the yoga exercises that have become commonplace in their classroom--and at several other schools across San Francisco.
"It makes me feel great, because we're doing like the animal does," said 7-year-old Willy Rosales. "The anteater is my favorite. You get to stretch your legs, and you can stretch your arms all the way around."
ABC Yoga Teaches Students 12 Poses
While adults are flocking to yoga classes in record numbers, these students are benefiting from a 5-year-old program in San Francisco that aims to teach schoolteachers yoga proficiency so they can take its benefits into the classroom.
The brainchild of U.S. Yoga Assn. founder and San Francisco Yoga Studio executive director Tony Sanchez, the program has trained dozens of teachers so far.
Sanchez and his wife, Sandy Wong, started the program pro bono, and it has expanded with grants from the San Francisco Education Fund and other foundations. Teachers from two additional schools will be trained starting in September, and the couple are applying for a federal grant that would enable them to reach every district school.
"School itself can be stressful, and a lot of these children come from dysfunctional families or one-parent families. The stress their parents experience transfers to them," said Sanchez.
"One of the basics of yoga is to be giving, and we decided that it was something we should do instead of just using yoga to make money. We felt we should be giving something back."
Sanchez and Wong hope that their yoga regimen will become a model for schools throughout the Bay Area. Their program, called ABC Yoga, teaches children 12 poses.
