A few years ago, if you had told me that I’d be attending the National Kids’ Yoga Conference in order to learn and gather information about growing my own business sharing the benefits of yoga and mindfulness with our younger minds, I would have had a good laugh. How quickly life can change, because that is exactly what I found myself doing this past weekend. I was able to meet a lot of great people, and learn from some of the premier minds in the field, including Kira Wiley, Sat Bir Khalsa, and team members from the Holistic Life Foundation. I left the weekend feeling ready to get MIndful Moving Kids out into the world (luckily, classes start in November www.honestsoulyoga.com/kids). But, I’m also feeling more motivated than ever to make sure that schools begin to see the value in adding yoga and mindfulness to their social-emotional learning curricula. The research presented at the conference was so conclusive, it’s impossible to ignore, and we already know that early intervention is best; therefore, teaching kids to engage in a regular physical and meditative yoga practice in their formative years stands to maximize the benefits. Check out the Yoga Alliance website page to check out the most updated research - it’s a wealth of awesome science.

In other news, here are some other experiences I had during the conference that I’d never before expected for myself:

• Creating songs - and singing them - to a group of adults

• Sitting in the front row during a keynote address (I usually take a more “blend-in-with-the-crowd” approach)

• Taking a selfie (I had to get a picture of myself with the #NKYC2018 backdrop)

Pushing boundaries - for students and for myself - feels great!