Rainbow Kids Yoga Teacher Training - 27 Hours of Love, Laughter, and Learning!


Last weekend I retook the Rainbow Kids Yoga Teacher Training Certification; not because I had to, but because I wanted to do it!  Three days of laughter, love, learning, and connecting to like-minded souls.  All of this is under the amazing tutelage of the remarkable Amanda McFayden.  

Practicing My Spiderwoman moves

Trying out some yoga "stations" on the yoga path

Demonstrating "The Spring" of the Yoga Gym

One, two, three, switch!

Two Headed Lizard!

Blindfolded Tightrope walk!

Rainbow Kids Yoga http://rainbowkidsyoga.net/index.html  was started in 2010 by Gopala Amir Yaffe.  There are now trainings being given all around the world, (even in Japan my dear Japanese colleagues!).  Amanda is the North American trainer.  We are lucky that she calls Newmarket home and also runs her own children’s yoga business locally  – Blisskids.   www.blisskids.ca

After this training, the newly certified RYK trainers have been emailing each other furiously and sharing how they’ve used their new skills.  The most common message so far though, is how Amanda’s bright love just shines out, while her enthusiasm for children and family yoga is contagious! Thanks to Core (yoga and Pilates) studio on Queen West for host.  Lisa, you were amazing. And thanks again, Amanda!

The November 2012 Toronto RKY Granduates taken by me!

Students Crossing Borders

I have been involved with the not-for-profit volunteer organization called Students Crossing Borders since 2009.  I was asked by my colleague, the late Lynn Caruso to join her in her work in Kingston, Jamaica.  SCB collaborates with some leaders in Riverton  City, Mustard Seed, and the Early Childhood Commission of Jamaica in supporting children and families in need. 

Our dear Lynn died on April 1st this year and is sorely missed.  We strive to carry on the work that Lynn has taken over from SCB founder, Fintan Kilbride.  We are in the midst of creating a board of directors.  Seneca College is also an important partner in this work. 

At this time I am currently recruiting early learning and care professionals who may be interested in coming on our next trip; May 4th to May 12th.  We will be helping children with special needs as well as collaboration with the early learning and care community in Kingston to hold a two-day ECE conference.  If you think you would be interested you could email me for more information:

ECE/Special Needs focus trip

May 4-12, 2013
Cost: $1,500.00 - includes all expenses (travel, food, simple accommodation, excursion)
Who?: ECE professionals, Early Interventionists, Children's Mental Health specialists, pediatric medical professionals, Early Literacy Specialists, Speech Pathologists, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, teachers, college/university professors, etc. 
Information Session:  Monday, November 26th, 155 Gordon Baker Rd. Toronto, ON
7:00 pm to 8:30 pm.  RSVP to me by email or call with questions.

A few pictures from last Spring's trip. 

"Break them one by one, gal and bwoy . . . "

 

Better late than never, more reflections on wondrous Japan.

Restaurants provide hot towels to wash yourself with before you eat. On hot days restaurants give you a chilled wet towel to wash yourself with before you eat. Thank you so much lovely Lucky Garden on Ikoma Mountain.  Quiet streets. 

Loud streets. Patient traffic. There are people whose job it is just to safely direct traffic (pedestrian, bike, and car) in and out of busy shopping centres, and around even small construction jobs.  So nice. (And they're not paying off-duty police officers some ridiculous amount as in Ontario.)

 

There are Shinto shrines on busy street corners.

 

  There is cold beer in vending machines - for about a dollar fifty.  Nice!  Clean toilets everywhere - even in the subway. White egrets in green rice paddies. Frogs, tree frogs. Crayfish.  Rice paddies between apartment buildings.

Hot springs and bathing.  Mountain paths with cicadas thrumming. Efficient, abundant, amazing transit. 

 

At the check-out, the delightful packing stations with newspaper, tape, string, etc. in grocery stores and 100 Yen shops (dollar stores). 

 Bowing. Tea.  Fresh, edible, affordable lunches at the convenience stores.  Small cool trucks.  Push-button service in restaurant.  No tipping.  Bicycles.  Bicycle parking under wisteria covered pergolas.  Manners.  The formal two-handed presenting and accepting of business cards.

  

Sleeping on tatami mats.

Young women's fun fashions.  Flower arranging.  Blue tile roofs. Grey tile roofs in the rain.

Gardens.  Big gardens, little gardens.  Planter gardens.

 Koi in blue and white ceramic bowls on doorsteps.  Heated toilet seats.  Toilets that clean and dry your bottom. Mountains.Stairways on the outsides of huge apartment buildings.

Temples. Bodhisattva.  (Thank you Steely Dan.) 

  Buddha.

 Wonderful people. People who love fun.  Kind and loving people. 

 

                                                         Shoe lockers in restaurants.

And the endless varieties of food.  Fish, salads, sea vegetables, noodles, dumplings, more fish. Raisins on pizza.  Octopus dumplings, your choice of sauce.  Daikon, burdock, bitter cucumber.  French pastries.  Japanese pizza.  Italian restaurants.  Japanese Beer.

Women-only subway cars in Osaka. 

 

Osaka! Parasols.Heat. Wearing a towel all day, every day because it is so hot and humid (37 C). "Love" hotels. Guest slippers.  Uniforms. And as your plane backs out of the gate, the people working on the runway bow to you.

Sayanara & good bye dear Japan. 

 

Hanshin Tigers Baseball Game

     Last week Mr. Tanaka one of Fumiko's English students, treated us to a Hanshin Tigers Baseball game at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka.  Apparently the Tigers are a little like the Toronto Maple Leafs, even when they are having a losing season, which they are this year, plenty of fans turn out. In August they don't use Koshien Stadium their real home, as it is being used for high school tournaments.  Baseball is huge here!


     Mr. Tanaka picked us up in Ikoma City and drove us to Osaka.  As we got close to the downtown, I could see other parts of Osaka that I had visited before - Osaka Castle and the big Japan Public Television building (like our CBC).  Parts of the city are right out of the Jetsons.  Raised highways, monorails, trains, subways, hidden ancient gardens, little shrines, cultured trees, crazy lights, and long narrow covered street malls.  So exciting.

 

We didn't park here - Over $10.00 each 25 minutes!

 

 

There was a band for each team. 

It's a real family outing.

 

We parked close to the stadium and found our seats - 11th row up from the field. By the way, if you walk in with a water or pop bottle from outside the stadium, the staff KINDLY pour it into a big sturdy paper cup for you instead of throwing it out!  Century 21 was doing a promo and all women got a gift bag with a fan, and a Hanshin Tigers/Century 21 seat cushion.  Next we got food and drinks.  I chose (I hate to say it) a KFC sandwich over the octopus dumplings that Fumiko and Mr. Tanaka chose.  Then I ordered an ice cold Asahi Dry draft from a beer-seller.  They wear a soft keg back-pack and have a gun-spout they pour into your cup.  They go down on their knees on the stadium step so as not to stand in the fans' way as they pour your drink.  And no tipping.

Everyone chants and sings and bangs plastic bats together for the whole game. To prepare for the seventh inning stretch, you have to blow up an enormously long balloon with a plastic whistle/mouthpiece. Then everyone lets them go at once.  They whistle and whirl around the stadium.  Awesome fun.

Unfortunately, the Tigers lost to the Dragons.