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Part 1: A Children's Yoga Journey to India We wish you a beautiful day and send many greetings from the Mahāprabhujī Ashram during the international yoga seminar. The program includes a children’s program. The children go for walks, into the forest, and play various games. Some of you may have seen one of the plays during yesterday’s broadcast. Today, you will first see exercises with small children. One learns to perform movements and āsanas correctly during it. They assist in maintaining the correct posture of the body. They coordinate and support muscle development. So, I welcome you to today’s yogi practice. Greetings to all friends who are watching us right now. And today we are practicing together outdoors. Now we will sit up straight and attune ourselves to yoga. Let us beautifully straighten our backs. We tuck in the chin. We relax the belly. Before we begin the practice, let us sing to calm ourselves. Three times gently Om. Let’s make a little bell sound and start with a low om. A little bell. Om, om,... om. The highest bell will sound. Om, om,... om. It’s like a bell, I greet you all, Hari Om. So let’s get moving with the little bug, let’s prepare for the little bug. And the little bug crawls everywhere, it wants to know everything, but before the poem ends, it’s back in its little home. Crawling, crawling, the bug, the wind blows into it. The wind blows stronger and stronger, carrying the beetle of the snowstorm. The beetle crawls, crawls, the wind blows into it. Catch the little beetle and once more a little faster, it crawls everywhere, maybe it missed something, to sift through and search thoroughly, it crawls, crawls, the wind blows into it, the wind blows stronger and stronger, carrying the beetle of the snowstorm, it crawls, crawls, the wind. Into it, fok, fok, a stone lies in the dance, a little beetle sleeps on it. And he completely rests in his little home, fully relaxing his back, releasing everything. In the forest lies a stone, and a little beetle sleeps upon it. As the stone tilts, the little beetle falls off, rolls onto its back, wipes its feet, its hands always doing something, and it falls to one side. And they completely collapse, fully relax, release the belly, the eyes, the mouth, everything softens. One more time, shake your legs thoroughly, your arms with even greater force than before, and fall, collapse, lie down in the grass, rest, and for the third time, with the greatest force possible, even your lips, legs, arms, shake everything out, even more, shake your legs even more. Even the hairs, everything he is wearing, and he collapses into the grass, lies down straight, stretches his legs, arms alongside the body, legs next to each other, we place the hand on the belly and check if our belly is breathing correctly. Inhale upward, exhale downward. The waves sway together. The waves of breath flow, one after another. Inhale upwards, exhale downwards. I lie down nicely, breathe quietly. I relax, I rest. And the little beetle sets off on its journey to the distant land of India. He is across the ocean, the waves carry him, and he wonders where he will arrive and what he will see in that distant land. He breathes quietly, completely relaxed, slowly approaching the shore, and gently moves the fingers on his hands, softly the fingers on his feet as well, circling at the wrists. And also rock back and forth with your knees. Gently, from above, we hold the knees. And then the little beetle gently rocks backward. He makes a kind of rocking motion. And we will try to go from that rocking motion into a squat. Sit down all the way into a squat. Excellent. And those who are in a squat, let us now stand up and prepare. I will sail to the distant land of India. It is a land where the sun shines brightly, the great heat arrives, and we greet that sun. Turn your palms toward the sun, join them and place them at your heart, look up to the sky, bow to the earth, offer your respect, and remain still for a moment. And we will stay like this for a moment, stretch your legs, it hurts a little, but it’s okay, raise your hands above your head, lift them, bring them down to your heart, sun salutation, Hari Om. And when he greeted the sun, an elephant came, and it taught the boy a beautiful elephant warm-up. The elephant, when it walks, it walks like a lord, right? So let’s prepare for the elephant walk and just discuss how the elephant walks. The earth trembles because the elephant, when it walks, does not just walk—it moves with purpose. Then he takes water into his trunk and sprays himself, bows, and stretches in the morning. They will exercise their ears, thoroughly stretch their elbows, show the whole world how beautiful they are, look here and there, and we are ready for the sun salutation. So let us prepare ourselves, and we can say it together. And of course, we can say it. Look, here he is, the esteemed Mr. Style. In the morning, he applies it from above, spraying it nicely from the top. He makes two prostrations, elbows apart, one for the people and one for the elephants. Exercise both ears, see how well it suits me. Look there, look here, look straight ahead, it’s coming closer, let’s watch, as the whole earth shifts, beware, there will be a fanfare, tram tarara, tram tarara, and we wave to our friend, we have more of them here, and we can greet him with a trunk. And now that he has greeted, let us return to our place, to the karimat. In India, just like everything else, the land is full of trees. And we will practice the tree pose, interlace our fingers, turn towards the sun, open the elbows wide, stand beautifully straight, and stretch up towards the sun as much as we can, pressing down with our feet and relaxing. Once again. We stretch ourselves as high as possible. We want to get closer and closer to the sun. And we relax. We stretch ourselves. Once more. As high as possible towards the sun. And we relax. And we release the hands. The tree will teach us to stand beautifully upright. Now we will practice the rag doll. What does the rag doll look like? Completely limp, completely relaxed, just like a rag, nothing holds it together, yet the rag doll can beautifully straighten up. At least I will go into that tree pose, the shoulders are back, the chin is tucked in, the pelvis slightly tilted, and standing beautifully straight. And we will practice one more, the tree, standing beautifully straight like this. We turn our palms toward the sun and reach higher toward it, then we release. Once again. Inhale and exhale, and one last time inhale and exhale, and relax. And we prepare for the frog. When it rains everywhere, but especially in India. It was raining all around, and the frog was sitting on the entire foot. Stretch the arms out, elbows to the knees, place the hands on the heart, look towards the sun, relax, bow the head, place the hands on the heart, look towards the sun, relax, bow nicely, and once more the little frog places the hands on the heart, He looks toward the sun, he looks toward the sun,... Look towards the sun. Gently bow your head and place your hands under your feet, preparing for the frog race. Keep your legs well stretched throughout. We will stand up and sit down on those legs several times—stand, sit, stand, excellent. Those who can, stretch your legs, then sit, stand, and sit again. Wonderful. Now, relax and sit down. For a moment, let us prepare for the butterfly pose. Now, what does it look like when a butterfly flies? On its back, it hovers above the landscape, flying fast, flying slowly. And now it flies over a beautiful meadow; it is in the world. Let us close our eyes and imagine that meadow over which the butterfly flies. It is full of colorful flowers, colors that are vibrant, abundant in them, and... That little butterfly chooses the most beautiful one, which will be only his, and he looks at it, and flies to it, because it is his flower that he has chosen, he sits on the flower and flutters his little wings and rests for a moment. Because the flower smells beautiful, the butterfly bows its head to it and tries to rest its little head completely, as far as it can, straightens its back, and flies on. He closes his eyes for a moment longer and bids farewell to the flower he has chosen. One last time, he looks at her beautiful color, waves, and flies away. The little butterfly is already flying on its own path. And there is one more such very powerful animal living in India. Which one? He can roar fiercely. A lion. So let us prepare for the lion. The lion is the king of animals. Radiate, that is the power, that everything goes through... The lion sits on its toes, with the legs apart, maruṣka on the toes, like that, legs apart. Show me how it extends its claws. Like it stretches out its claws, raising its shoulders threateningly, right? It stretches out its claws and then relaxes. And then the tongue, and he rolls his eyes. Show me how to roll your eyes and stick out your tongue, just like that. That’s it, excellent. Prepare yourselves for the lion. Inhale. It extends its claws. The salt roar and the salt animal. He can also give us that power here, if we then practice with him. One more inhale. We release. And finally, we prepare for the lion. And we relax. We lie down on our backs, on our stomachs, heads forward; not only predators, but also other animals live in India, for example, a deer. Slowly finish. And then we lie down in the crocodile pose. And the crocodile lives in India. And lie down as a crocodile. The crocodile also lives in India. But most of the time it is lazy and has one characteristic. It cannot even move. A crocodile, when it does not want to, no one can tell whether it is alive or not. And before the song ends, let us try not to move at all. We stop the eyes, we stop the body, we stop the legs and the hands. Now they will listen to us for a little while. And before the song ends, the crocodile doesn’t even move. The river Nile flows for thousands of miles, and yet the Nile crocodile dwells in that river. And that crocodile, he did not like to wash, he preferred to laze around in the muddy porridge. Crocodiles, poles out, we will wash you a little, we will wash you a little, we will wash you a little. And that crocodile, one might think it was a fool, so it preferred to laze around in the muddy porridge. Excellent, the crocodile stretches, pulls one arm with the other, very good, we held on nicely, we roll onto our back and stretch the whole body, stretch as much as possible, put our hands behind the head, stretch as if someone wanted to, stretch into a split and release, bring the hands back and again once we stretch out, extend our arms as much as possible, Vít, and then relax, and one last time we stretch, stretch our arms, stretch our legs, extend one arm, then the other, and relax, and finally, for a moment, we settle into the tiger pose, the tiger. He knows how to rest, so just like a little tiger rests, what does a tiger’s relaxation look like? The tiger lies on its belly, bends one leg, stretches the other, and stretches one forward. Excellent. A deep inhale and exhale. Now the mask, to the side, nicely, to the side. So, bend one leg, tiger pose, and stretch the other. A deep breath into the belly, a deep exhale. A deep breath in and a deep breath out. And for a moment, the little tiger imagines what he managed to do today, what he liked during the day. Perhaps he will also meet a little beetle, and the beetle will tell him everything it has seen in India, everything it has experienced. The belly is completely relaxed, the back is relaxed. And we rest beautifully. To conclude, a deep breath into the belly and a deep exhale. One more deep inhale and a deep exhale. And we stretch again, roll over onto our belly, extend one arm, then the other. Let’s roll onto our backs, just for a moment longer. And we join our palms and rub them thoroughly. We will gently soothe, warm as much as possible, place on the eyes, massage the eyes, caress the hair, behind the ears, along the body where something might hurt or tingle, and finally we will sit down, after yoga we will stretch, so everyone will sit again in a cross-legged position, with the back... Part 2: A Children's Yoga Practice We will beautifully align ourselves, and at the end of the practice, we will sing, "Settling down," three times. Now, normally without the bell, gently straighten your back. Take a deep inhale, just into the belly. Deep inhale. Deep inhale. Bell. Everyone greet, Hari Om. So come, let’s do a little something at the end. Circle, come closer to each other like this. Come so we can extend our arms around each other. Come so we can extend our arms around each other. Come so we can extend our arms around each other. We reach with our hands, we reach. So let’s make an even smaller circle. Come on, let’s make an even smaller one. And at the end, we will sing together. Reach out to each other, reach out. Excellent. Just a little more, then we can begin. So, to conclude, we will sing a song—when something goes well for us, that’s what we sing. I am happy, I am happy. Greet the friends on the webcast. And come here, come here. Greet the friends on the webcast. And we also focus on performing the āsanas with greater precision. Yoga aids in more precise physical development. During their growth, they develop greater sensitivity. For them alone, but the steadfast also have their surroundings. So let us rejoice, children, rejoice. Today we will bear witness to yoga together. Let us prepare ourselves. Sit down in a cross-legged posture. Settle in comfortably, prepare ourselves, and straighten our spine. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath into the belly and exhale. Relax the shoulders and elbows. Relax the lower back, gently release. Let us become aware of how we feel, how our mind feels, and let us try to release all the thoughts of the entire day completely. And we will sing together the mantra Oṃ three times at the beginning. At the beginning, we will chant the mantra Oṃ three times. And now you can slowly relax. Lie down in Ānandāsana, so you can lie on your back. Close your eyes again. Relax your abdomen. Take a deep inhale into your abdomen. And with the next deep inhale and exhale, from the soles of the feet to the crown... With the next exhale, we release the soles. The pathways. We relax the calves and the knees. We release the thighs. The lower back—we completely relax it. We exhale all the tension out completely. We relax the belly, the muscles around the navel, and we relax the entire chest. We choose the spine. With several inhales and exhales, all the vertebrae, from the bottom upwards. We become aware of and release the shoulders, shoulder joints, muscles on the upper arms, elbows, forearms. Relax the wrists and palms and all the fingers on the hands. And when we have relaxed both hands, we relax the blood. When we focus, when we could relax it, we release the chin, tongue, teeth. Relax the nose, and the eye sockets, forehead, temples, all the way to the crown of the head. We have relaxed the entire body. Now let us try to feel it, to feel Ānandāsana, how our body feels—excellent. Take one deeper inhale and exhale, again into the belly. And slowly begin to move the fingers of the hands and feet. We can move the head and neck to the side. We can rub our palms together and warm up the muscles in the face, the eye sockets. Then open the eyes and take a deep breath. As we inhale, place the hands behind the head and stretch the whole body, just like when we get up from bed in the morning, stretching with the fingers on the hands. We can repeat placing the hands behind the head a few more times. Several times more, we inhale and stretch the body, also reaching back with the heels. And with the exhale, we release. A few more breaths, stretch the heels, and release on the exhale. And two more times: inhale, exhale. And once more inhale, and with the exhale, we release. Let us join our palms, bring our feet together, and gently twist to the side a few times. So, with the inhale, we twist beautifully, and with the exhale, return back. Then to the other side, repeating several times, nicely massaging the back. Good, and we will finish. So, we can also draw our knees in while seated, open the knees, and roll a few times with the knees still together. And we will rock forward and backward. Pause in the middle position. Rock several times, and finish in a seated posture. Excellent. Let us sit down and prepare for the practice of Caturaṅga. So let’s move to the end of the karimantka into Vajrāsana. Prepare ourselves. Keep the back straight. Sit back on the heels, and we can begin. We press our hands together, look beyond them, and little bunny. Release the little hands, a tiny bit, slowly forward, and cobra. We look down, toes to the ground, transition into the mountain pose. One foot between the hands. Straighten the back—whichever you prefer—straighten the back gently, and raise the arms. Relax now. Release the pelvis downward. Fully bend down, nicely, and back up. And the back foot comes to the front. We relax completely. Release the entire upper body, the head. We release the shoulders beautifully. And with an inhale we release the torso. Look behind the hands, release back. And the leg that was in front will now go back, and the mountain that was in front will now go back. The knees will go back, slowly into the cobra, without bending the knees. Little bunny. And we stretch the arms up, and back, beautifully. For a moment we feel caturaṅga, and let’s try once more, the second round. And well, by ourselves. So let us prepare, ready. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Let us become aware of how our body feels after practicing caturaṅga. It is like after work. As we practice so beautifully, let us relax for a moment, śaśāṅka and sāṇe, little hare. So. So again, back, back. With the inhale, we gaze. We join the palms. Let’s look beyond the hands. And exhale. Slowly down. Keep the back straight. And we release the forehead to the ground. We loosen our shoulders, relax our elbows, and breathe into the belly for a moment. And one deeper inhale and exhale into the belly. And with the next inhale, slowly back, keep your spine straight. And an exhale. Let us sit down. Sitting. We will close the āsana called bunamana āsana. Let us greet the earth. Uneven back, we gently tear the adhesions. Prepare ourselves, and we can begin. Inhale forward and exhale backward. The sacrum remains on the mat as we roll the lower back, forehead to the ground, and inhale back up with the exhale. And an exhale. And then on the other side an inhale and an exhale. Hips on the ground, forehead on the earth. Inhale back, and exhale. We can lean back, gently feel the points behind your back, and sense the effects. Let’s do it one more time. Prepare yourselves. Get ready. Inhale, and exhale down. Inhale back, and exhale. On the other hand, inhale, exhale. Inhale back, and exhale thoroughly. We can lean a little. And please, if any part of our body hurts, we direct our exhales there. When you feel some pain somewhere, you can take all the exhales into these places. So we strengthen the shoulders, legs, lower back, neck, belly, everything. So let’s make a grinder together. So, once again, let us prepare ourselves. Straighten your back, forward, excellent. We will interlace our fingers and move forward with the exhale. Exhale back. Exhale forward, and inhale to the left. Inhale to the left side. And again five times. You see that, excellent. That’s enough. We will get there, great. That’s enough, and relax for a short while, beautifully. Let’s return to Vajrāsana. Since we have managed everything so well, we can say that we are all heroes. Yes, let’s call ourselves heroes. So, come on, let’s begin with the right foot. Prepare yourselves. The right foot will go into what? The left will rest on the heel. We place the seat on it, excellent. Sit on your left heel. Keep your back straight, and hold for a moment. And remain like this for a while. When, for example, our little leg hurts, we endure it. If your leg is already tired, you may change the position. Actually, we relax. Great, and now you can return to the starting position. We can feel it for a moment and have time. Feel the effects. It will be fixed. And get ready. Let’s try the other side. So the left foot will be forward. The right stays on the heel. Don’t write, a spark on the heel. And we will relax the head. You will gladly return. And again feel the effects of the exercise called Vīrāsana. Ok. Now we can stand up. Legs apart. Close your eyes. Hands beside the body. Inhale and exhale. Deep inhale and deep exhale. Inhale and exhale. And we can keep our eyes closed, adding the movement of our hands to the movement of our breath. With the inhale, we will raise the arms and cross them above the head. And with the exhale, we will bring the hands back down to the body. Several times. One more time, for the last time. And we will slowly finish. Beautifully, excellently. And let’s stretch a little more. For now, let’s move on to the āsanas, the triangles. So we’ll make it a bit wider, from that stance. And we will begin by bowing to the left together. So, we inhale deeply into the belly. And we will go to the left. And exhale back. Exhale to the right and back again, inhale. And watch, change, exhale. We look behind the hand, inhale. And exhale to the other side. And exhale to the left, change again. Let’s leave the other side and move on. We are now going to balancing āsanas. We will begin with the eagle. We will start with the eagle. So stand on your left foot. So you should find a level place to stand on. And we hold, hold, everyone, just a little longer. One more breath, and back. And we sit down, excellent, beautiful. Let’s find a spot on the right foot, once again. Good, back. Great, now you can return. Let’s untangle our hands, and also our feet. Good, nicely done. And finish the exercise. Let us relax for a moment. Relax for a while. So let us try the swan to finish. So we will start again on the left, staying balanced on the left leg. We’ll start by standing on your left foot. Good. We will hold the right foot by the instep and extend the left arm, then slowly move into a forward bend. And we hold beautiful swans. And we hold beautiful swans. Good, and you may return. And we hold the beautiful swans. Good. Let’s try the other side. We find a stable place again. We move the foot, we throw, and we go into the position, slowly. And hold, hold, excellent. Slowly back, very nicely. We will stay standing for a moment longer. We relax. We feel the body. We must become aware of how we feel. We feel the muscles, the tendons, the practice, the yogis. Excellent. To conclude, let us sit again in the cross-legged position. And let us quiet down for a moment. We sit with straight backs. Let’s straighten our backs and gently prepare our hands. Close your eyes. And a couple of times we will inhale and exhale into the belly. And at the very end of our practice, we will chant the mantra Oṃ three times. And you can go down, relax your back. Thank your body for having practiced so beautifully. Excellent. I thank you very much for today’s beautiful practice. Thank you very much for this beautiful practice that you are doing. That is all for today’s practice with the children. So that concludes all the children’s practice for today. Of course, there are several programs taking place at the Střilecký Castle. Of course, there are other programs in the Střilky Ashram as well. For children, for adults, for parents with children. If you choose any of them, you are warmly welcome. And of course, when you choose one of them, you are very pleasant here.