Li’l Yogis began as a way for me to bring the life-changing power of yoga to the community in Mumbai. I wanted to help parents, as well as kids, with an activity that had transformed me and then my daughter. However, through experience, I saw that without a good guru, it could be vast and difficult to grasp. There is a lot of physical work alongside dense concepts; so the agility of the mind and the body had to be equally addressed. Finding a way to teach all this to children and keeping them engaged all the way through, was a challenge, although it was a fun one.

It always felt right to create Li’l Yogis as a forum to help kids imbibe yoga in an enjoyable, sustainable way, rather than emphasising certification too much. Taking cues from my yoga journey and teaching my daughter, I was able to create a comprehensive blueprint for working with other kids. I was also lucky enough to be able to bring together a team of trustworthy, patient and experienced teachers who share the load with me.

Together, we carefully design our classes to address kids’ needs. We constantly try to make concepts and poses as easy to understand as possible. And this means making them as fun as possible. We have found that teaching through storytelling works best. We can convey everything from asanas to philosophy by wrapping it all up in stories and games, songs and themes. These are curated, based on the ages and thus the developmental phases of the kids.

Yoga also has deep roots in nature and natural imagery, which most kids love; so we found it important to deepen this connect. Kids can imbibe the majesty of a lion through the lion pose or the grace of a bird through the pigeon pose. Finally, breathwork, meditation and asanas better kids’ mind-body connection, keeping students on their toes, sometimes literally! In our classes, learning is continuous, spontaneous and free flowing. It’s holistic development, tailored to each child. We’re happy to see that boys and girls as young as three and as old as fifteen stay engaged in our classes.

Making yoga a way of life for many more kids and helping parents with the task of raising well-rounded, stable children gives us a lot of joy. In order to achieve this, as well as move with the times, we’ve become more digital this year. So, while our offline classes continue, we can take our tried and tested methods far and wide through the power of the world wide web. In this way we can be safe and reach more kids across the world; win-win!

We’ve even gathered all our learning into a comprehensive online course for anyone who wishes to be a yoga teacher for kids. You can learn at your own pace and you get practical advice and lessons to supplement the theory, too. Our goal is to continue spreading the yogic way of life from Europe to Australia, one little yogi at a time!