The hyper-linked table of contents also helps to organize the 75 pages for easier maneuverability to specific articles.

Volume 3 is laid out in three chapters: Big Picture, Inspiration for the Classroom, and Notes on Poses.

Chapter 1, Big Picture, includes the following articles:

• How to Turn Teens On to Yoga
• How to Make Your Class Appeal to Teens
•  Teach Every Teen About Food
• Advice for Teaching Boys

 Chapter Two, Inpiration for the Classroom, includes these articles:

• A Yoga Philosophy for Teens
• Teaching Yoga on the Football Field
• Teen Girls Become a Flock of Birds
• Snapshots from a Teen Girl Yoga Class
• What to Do with Old Yoga Magazines
• Every Teen Can Get a Thrill
• Shifting “I Don’t Care” to “I Care”
• Teaching Savasana to Suicidal Teens
• Fun Partner Yoga Pose for Teens
• From Distraction to Attraction
• Make 30 minutes Effective for Teaching

Chapter 3, Notes on Poses, includes articles about a special Savasana and a pose to feel more generous.

It is not necessary to read Volumes 1 and 2 before Volume 3.  The content of each of the Teaching Teenagers Yoga eBooks is unique and mutually exclusive.

Buy Volume 3 here for $19.95.

To honor the release of Teaching Teenagers Yoga, Volume III, YogaMinded is offering a special promotion:

Buy all three ebooks for $34.95.
To take advantage of this offer, simple add all three ebooks to the shopping cart. The promotion will automatically be employed, with a savings of $24.95.

Here is a little more information about Teaching Teenagers Yoga ebook, Volumes 1 and 2.  With 75 pages, 22 articles, and lots of pictures, the reader of Teaching Teenagers Yoga, Volume 1 will learn what teachers are doing in the teen yoga classroom. Christy shares tips and reflections on handling the teen yoga classroom. Nine innovative teen yoga teachers are featured who explain what has worked for them teaching teens.  Buy Volume 1 here for $19.95.

 Teaching Teenagers Yoga eBook, Volume 2  also delves deep into teaching yoga to teenagers. It provides insightful interviews with teen yoga teachers as well as commentaries on teaching teens by Christy Brock. With 55 pages and pictures, Volume II offers fresh articles and perspective and new teacher summaries. There are seven teachers featured in Volume 2 and five articles on teaching teens by Christy Brock.

Buy Volume 2 here for 19.95.

EBooks can be printed or viewed onscreen at your leisure. They never expire.  EBooks are easy to read on your computer screen, can be printed at your discretion, and conserve the use of paper.  With the purchase of these eBooks, it is possible to hone your skills and perspective in relating yoga to this age group.

YogaMinded’s Teaching Teenagers Yoga eBooks on are separate in purpose and function than the hard back, spiral-bound book, YogaMinded’s Yoga4Teens Instructor’s Guide. To understand the differences between these products (the eBooks and the hard-backed manual) and decide which one is right for you, read this detailed explanation.

Ten great reasons to sign up for this training follow:

1. Learn how to empower the next generation of teenagers with yoga.
2. Network with other teachers whose personal experience will motivate and inspire you.
3. Gather powerful tools for teaching teenagers.
4. Prepare to become an effective teacher and role model for teenagers.
5. Learn fun partner activities that are appropriate for teens.
6. Share your own ideas for teaching teenagers.
7. Sharpen both your listening and speaking skills to authentically connect with teens.
8. Be coached by a teacher who will help you realize your teaching potential.
9. Join the YogaMinded network of teaching teenagers yoga that provides year-round support.
10. Enjoy the Childlight Yoga home studio.

Sign up today.

One day options and discounts for return students are available.

View Christy’s welcome on YouTube.

YogaMinded is proud to feature Koren Paalman teaching her Belmont High School class in this downloadable video.

This interview by Christy Brock Miele was initially published in 2008. The interviewer’s remarks are in bold followed by Koren’s replies in regular typeface.

Tell me about your decision to do this work.

I did not really decide, the students did. I was teaching English as a Second Language while I was getting a Master’s degree from USC. I learned about a technique called Total Physical Response, a learning method that links body movement with language acquisition. I thought it was useful, but realized it would be even more powerful if the body movement was yoga poses.

When I came up with this theory, I tried it in the classroom. It was reallyeffective and popular; so much so that my students would chant “Yoga, yoga, yoga!” when I came into the classroom. I wrote my Master’s thesis on using yoga to teach English as a Second Language. Due to student interest, I proposed to offer a yoga only class. It was a smashing success.

So, that was the start to teaching yoga at Belmont High School.

Yes, I started in 1998 and I offered one class every day for credit. Students from 13-19 could take yoga instead of P.E. My classes had all kinds of students, from the newest freshmen to the seniors who should have graduated the year before. My classes meet (both then and now) an hour a day, five days a week for four months, a semester at Belmont. I have had to close the class at 50 students because I only had 45 mats. With so many students I figured some would be absent so there would be enough mats for everyone.

Three years later I proposed a second class so I then had two classes of 50 students every day. At one point I taught four classes a day but the politics of the situation limited me from doing this for long, and I wasn’t sure I could sustain four classes anyway. Teaching yoga requires a lot of talking, observation, and sheer presence with the students. I did not want to give up teaching AP psychology and health, since I believe they are an important part of a well-rounded education.

Currently the class is only open to juniors and seniors “in good standing” who have passed four semesters of P.E. already. It has changed to be a PE elective. There have been a lot of changes in the way the administration sees my yoga class. Considering that the graduation rate for our high school is only 45% and “in good standing” means passing all classes, you can see that someone was trying to close the class yet I still have a full class. Goodness prevails again!

Koren Teaching Her Class Virabhadrasana II

Do you want to say more about the politics of offering yoga in school?

There is a lot of politics, in general, to working in an inner city public high school. The poorer the neighborhood, the more conservative the school is. The yoga classes caused a stir in the community because teens were leaving the traditional P.E. classes in droves. My class started out for P.E. credit and now it is for elective PE credit. Even so, I have a credential to teach P.E so I can teach yoga for credit. Additionally I have credentials to teach psychology, health and even English. Not a lot of high school teachers have more than one credential, but that’s what I needed to do to share what I love academically.

What about the parents?

 In general, they are very supportive. On parent-teacher night, many ask me where they can find yoga in their communities. Rarely do I have parents upset about their children doing yoga. In my eleven years of teaching, two students have actually been removed from class by their parents. That is not really a lot considering that I get hundreds of students a year. These parents mistook yoga for a religion, which it is not.

I personally have found that getting support teaching teens yoga is helpful. I’m wondering if you ever feel that way.

I have never had any, but I am curious and excited about being a part of a community of teen yoga teachers. I have learned so much being a member of the Iyengar yoga community and feel that it would be great to work with other yoga teachers working with teens. I’ve been in isolation in teaching teens, though not by choice.

Why do you think your teen students have taken to yoga so strongly?

I teach at an inner city public high school that is the poorest, most gang-infested neighborhood in Los Angeles. Because it is one of the most stressful neighborhoods, the students eat yoga up. Everyone knows yoga releases stress and they have a lot of it!

What does it take to reach this group of students?

There are several aspects:

1) Much of my energy is spent defending the yoga class to the administration of the school. I have always said that if I did not have a yoga practice myself I would have never had the patience to put up with it all.

2) Because this population doesn’t have access to yoga after graduating, I spend time teaching students how to build a home practice, which they should have anyway. Additionally whenever I can I pass out old yoga mats that yoga studios donate. I pass out photocopied sequences and talk about my home practice.

3) I am a very open and approachable person. When I first started out I needed to let students know I was teaching a yoga class so I went around to homerooms. The first day of the yoga class I asked them what made them try it. They said I seemed pretty “cool”. Teens make decisions very intuitively and they sensed I had something to teach they wanted.

4) I am extremely committed to this population, working with people of color, and in communities that are under-served. As long as I can teach them, I am going to. They deserve a chance to see themselves and the world differently. It is that that will bring about change in our city.

What can you tell us about B.K.S. Iyengar’s support of your
teaching?

I have gotten more support from him than I could have imagined. He not only helps me with my own practice but also reads accounts of my work eagerly. I send him pictures of my students and he loves them! He can see from the students and the room we are in the nature of what I do. He reads bodies like no one I know! Most people in the Iyengar community are white and middle class. He is happy when his teachers are reaching out to other communities because as he always says, “Yoga is for everyone.”

It was a sweet surprise to learn how much joy he gets from knowing Iyengar yoga is reaching poor communities and people of color but it is in line with the work he is now busy with. He is currently raising money to build a school and hospital in his hometown Belur, which is a really poor village in Southern India. I can imagine his smile. Those of us who teach teens are so tickled seeing young people embrace the practice. Of course, Iyengar is thrilled… he’s spent his whole life teaching young and old, alike.

Do you teach with props?

I brought belts back from India. I have 50 blocks and I have sticky mats which were donated from various yoga studios. We did not have blankets
for years but now I do have one blanket per student.

Do you start them in a seated pose?

I start them lying down. They start in either Savasana, Supta Baddha Konasana, Supta Sukhasana, or Prone Savasana. Prone Savasana calms the nervous system very quickly. Starting this way allows me to take roll and talk to students with issues or concerns. It also provides a bridge from their normal classes to the yoga class where expectations are different. When I call role, they simply raise a limb. I get to know them pretty fast.

With 200 names to learn, and you do need to know their names, this provides another way to recognize them (by their body parts).

Say more about knowing their names.

I do not use their names to correct. I use their names to praise. You get to know who wants feedback. I use their names to greet them and to direct them. It is part of teaching and essential way to have a very good relationship with them.

Do you have any one on your side in the administration?

Yes, but I also have one constant nemesis. It is not personal, it is protective over the physical education department and a possible aversion to alternative healing modalities. 

Do any teachers do your class?
Yes, they put themselves at the back of the room.

You had mentioned to me that despite the fact that you have students who learn differently or have bodies that do not do yoga as well, that your students are amazing to each other in class. How do you create the yoga atmosphere that “they are amazing to each other”?

I believe in them and model an environment of mutual respect. They see this and do the same. I have wonderful students! I have never had to talk
about treating people well.

Tell me more about your students.

Right now I have mostly boys in my class. There is a lot of “boy energy”. And as I mentioned they are juniors and seniors. They are young men and act accordingly. They give each other a hard time and wrestle a bit, but it is always done on good fun, never as a way of picking on someone for learning differently or being less able to do yoga. They are a cultural mix of students as well, approximately 75% are Latinos, 20% are mixed Asian, and 5% are African American.  There are also all sorts of personalities, from jocks to rockers.

And you’re white.

Yes, and they see a white person who is different from their idea of white people. They see me for who I am. I establish authentic relationships with my students and we
enjoy each other and see past cultural differences.

How do you handle the boy energy with asana?

I teach a lot more Sun Salutations and strength-building poses. Also the boys need their hips opened so we do that. I really adapt things according to the energy of the group that day. I pit them against each other sometimes. I may say, “I wonder who can do this pose best?” I have found that a little competition gets them to work harder. I know that may not sound yogic but we are having fun and they like it. The girls, however, do not need the competition to work hard. This is true formost subjects in high school. Typically girls work harder.

Every other Friday I do a 35 minute guided Savasana. They are addicted!!! That is how stressed out they are. They are all not sleeping enough. They walk around exhausted. They need time to relax deeply. Every other Friday, I do partner yoga. My boys work with other boys or girls and everyone learns how to be comfortable physically.

Do you have any words of wisdom on becoming a more effective teen yoga teacher?

Relationships with your students are the key. You must know them and genuinely like them to be effective. And then you enjoy teaching them as
much as they enjoy learning.

Study their energy in the beginning of class. Use a standing pose as a barometer— are they working hard or being lazy?

Talk them about health, philosophy, psychology and life in general. Share yourself with them. Be yourself. Teach them to love themselves.

Koren, thank you so much for taking the time for this interview.  Your teaching is an inspiration and I believe this interview will be helpful to many.

Koren Paalman is a Junior Intermediate level certified Iyengar yoga teacher with a BA in Psychology from UCLA and an MS in Education from USC. In 1998 she started the first yoga program for credit in the Los Angeles Unified School District where she taught Yoga, Health and Psychology classes at Belmont High School for fourteen years.  She currently teaches adults and youth at  the Iyengar Yoga Institute of Los Angeles (www.iyila.org) and several Yoga Works locations. For more information about her work visit: www.inventiveascent.com .

YogaMinded is proud to feature Koren Paalman teaching her Belmont High School class in this downloadable video. 

Now, my time to practice asana is squeezed into the precious moments when the youngest is napping and the oldest is at school. (That is, if I’m comfortable blowing off the other responsibilities of managing our household.) Or, I may just decide to practice amidst my daughters calling my name, or doing crafts near me, or bouncing around the room being their lovely selves.

I get a kick out of the contrast between now and then. Life is such an ever-changing process. It is as if my awareness is riding on a magic carpet. I observe the moments; the days and the years fly by.

No longer do I have a two to three hour practice set aside for rapture and discovery. What I have now is a joyous and loving calling to experience my daughters in all their glory.

My 5-year-old daughter took the following pictures on a day when I really wanted to do some poses. This may have been the day that I surrendered yet again to being the best mom I can be.

If you would like to create a class where boys will engage in yoga, here is my advice:

Sequence from simple to complex. Do and repeat a basic movement and then add a complexity to it. For instance, bring the class into a lunge as the starting point for the pose pictured below. Next, we repeat the lunge and add a deeper hip opener. Again, we repeat the lunge and hip opener and then add the turn and wrap.

Give a quick and instructive demonstration of a complex pose with special instructions for avoiding common pitfalls and arriving in the pose.
It can help students to see what the pose looks like because it is hard for this age to translate words into their bodies. Using the example again of the pose pictured, before presenting the final step, I first demonstrated how to get into it.

Inquire about what they are feeling and where. When I ask this question, I can see them pausing as they take a moment to locate where they actually feel something. Sometimes, they simply answer by touching the place in their body, which I love because it shows me they have made a connection. Note that timing is important; better to ask this in a reflective position rather than during a struggle.

Try to tap in to what’s going on in their body and whatever else might be of concern. The boy that is not participating has a pain in his leg, for instance. Or, someone is battling calves that are super tight. One boy has an English paper due tomorrow and is stressed by the fact that he isn’t working on it now. When you know these things as a teacher, it is possible to present poses and special instructions that cater to their present-moment needs. They are alert to what you have to say because you are speaking to them directly.

Ask boys “what’s up?” when they are not participating. You will learn about them and develop a relationship. It could be a reason you haven’t imagined. Or, the question itself may prompt them to join in. If it is a question of attitude, invite them to engage in an attitude of willingness and discovery. If you don’t get the participation or attitude of willingness, make a wise choice for directing the group as a whole.

Recognize their effort. I even say things like “Wow, Michael, I can see that you are really concentrating today”. Or, “That’s the way, Caleb. You’re doing it.”

Involve them in the class. I may ask someone to count for us in another language as we repeat something five times. Or, have a student model a pose for the others.

Give good instructions that demand the specific actions of a pose. Integrate breathing instructions. Remember you are teaching them how to do something. Observe how your language effects students’ movements. For instance, “Raise your arms and continue to breathe” will have a different effect than “Stretch your arms up by your ears with your palms facing each other. Now, stretch from your shoulders into your fingers. Breathe easily while you hold your arms here and continue reaching.” You know, I don’t always give this much instruction either. It’s just a good idea to keep them in their body and the way you say things does matter. Be specific and simple about what you want.

Teach though a loving presence. It is amazing to watch how much more boys are capable of when you say their name, place yourself near them, and pay attention to them without judgement.

May you have wonderful yoga classes for boys!