Yoga gone bad

Yesterday for Earth Day, at my big boy's wonderfully progressive school, brought in a yoga instructor to join each class for a 30 minute session, with parents invited to participate. As you know now, I love preschool, so I was game for the activity (hey mom, I know you read this so tell me, I don't remember, did I ever go to preschool?).

The school correctly foresaw that the littlest of guys would likely have the shortest of attention span, so all the 3s classes (all 48 kids) went at one time to the gym together. It is amazing to see a group of kids, actually really well behaved and ready to learn, just sitting there like little sponges tittering with anticipation. The Yogi started by introducing yoga, asking the kids if they knew what it was. "exercise", "stretching", "spinning" they shouted. These are NYers! The yogi explained it is a discipline for calming and centering the soul which includes exercise, breathing and stretching. Then we were off to the moves/positions. She talked about a position and then the kids (and mommies; no daddies were there) did it. The kids were great stretching, crawling, standing on one leg.

Then the class took an ugly turn. The yogi decided to explain to a bunch of three or newly four year olds that they have a "third eye" between the two they already knew about. That this eye is invisible, but that we should open it to see into our souls, karma, to keep our mind and body in sync. As soon as the words were said, I though, "Ouch." Then we message our third eye, did a few child poses with our third eye touching the ground, ending lying flat on our backs relaxing with our eyes closed, but "trying to open our third eye".

Before we left the room, Big Boy wanted to know if he could see my third eye and can I open it? His friends that know me from visiting class gathered to hear my answers, which makes it a dedicate situation. "Honey, it is invisible, but I can show you some drawing of what it looks like at home". It is always good to have a Hindu art around!

We talked about it all evening, and when DH got home, he was surprised by the line of questioning. What surprised me was the language my son used to explain the eye; "it helps you see inside your body and maintain a healthy balance." Just not what I expected from a four year old. He also manged to teach his younger brother how to massage his third eye so his would open too. Scary how fast they grow up.