Tatty Bumpkin’s Yoga Crab Pose - Great for young muscles and minds - helping core-stability, self-regulation and concentration

By Sue Heron – Training Co-ordinator Tatty Bumpkin and Paediatric Physiotherapist 

This week Tatty Bumpkin is off to a ‘Fun day’ with her friend crab.

Crab Yoga activity is a classic pose often used by paediatric physiotherapists and occupational therapists as it has so many movement and sensory benefits for children.

Crab pose will give your child the opportunity to:

1. Activate and strengthen their ‘core’ muscles

When your child does crab pose they will be activating their shoulder, back, tummy and hip muscles i.e. the muscles around their middle or ‘core’.

Crab pose is excellent for strengthening your child’s ‘gluteal’ muscles - around their hips. Strong, active gluteal muscles improve balance skills for sport and may even help to prevent a ‘knock kneed’ standing and walking position in later life. Active shoulder muscles help your child to control their arm for writing. 

2. Gently alert or calm themselves to focus

As your child does crab pose they will be stimulating their ‘proprioceptive’ sense.
This sense tells us where our body is in space - whether our joints are straight or bent, whether our muscles are stretched or contracted. Hard work activities such as pushing, pulling or lifting really stimulate our proprioceptive sense e.g. tug-of war, climbing and pushing games or, indeed, Yoga poses. Yoga poses require us to lift our body off the floor in various positions i.e. as your child does crab pose they will be lifting their body off the floor to balance on their hands and feet.

Lifting your body off the floor activates your proprioceptive sense

The Proprioceptive Sense and Alertness

Interestingly proprioceptive rich activities (like pushing, lifting etc) can help us manage our levels of alertness. This is because proprioceptive input, along with deep pressure touch, is the most accepted and tolerated form of sensation by our body. 

So proprioceptive input can be: regulating, calming, soothing, organising and/or alerting, depending on the current state of our nervous system. For example, if your child is over-excited, finding it hard to concentrate, proprioceptive activities can help them to feel more grounded enabling them to focus. On the other hand, if your child is feeling drowsy, finding it hard to wake up and concentrate, proprioceptive activities can help them feel more alert – in an organised way. 

Levels of Alertness for Well-being and Learning

• Our levels of alertness naturally alter throughout our day; in the morning we should be gradually increasing our level of alertness - to wake up, at night we should be lowering our state of alertness - so we can sleep. 
• To learn, it’s thought our level of alertness should be somewhere in the middle – we should be 'calmly alert'. In this calm alert state, neither over excited nor drowsy, we can focus on what we are doing long enough so we can truly understand it.

The Reticular Activating System - Area Managing Levels of Alertness

• Our Reticular Activating System (RAS) is a small area at the base of our brain with wide connections throughout our brain. All of our senses (except smell) follow nerve pathways which are connected to, and pass through, our RAS. As a result our RAS has many functions but it is thought to have a major role in the regulation of our alertness levels i.e.
• Our RAS helps us to focus our attention, acting like a filter to dampen down the effect of repeated stimuli. For example, as you are reading this blog a fly may be buzzing at window across the room, at first you are distracted by the sound but, after a while, your RAS filters out this distant (harmless) buzzing noise allowing you to keep your attention on the blog.

Our RAS filters out unwanted/harmless sensations helping us to concentrate 

• The information filtered and processed by our RAS contributes to its role in regulating our overall level of alertness and so our sleep/wake cycle. In the morning, our RAS system becomes more excitable, meaning we gradually become aware of incoming sensory information - maybe bird song outside or our alarm clock. As a result, we become more alert. At night time, our RAS system should be less excitable, meaning our body becomes less responsive to the world around us - allowing us to relax and sleep.

• For our body to be at the ‘just right’ level for learning our RAS needs to be working steadily, neither over or under-excited, just steadily filtering out unwanted sensory information – keeping us in the calm alert state.

Proprioceptive Sensory Input and the RAS 

Neuroscientists have suggested that the type of sensation influences the excitability of our RAS - and so our level of arousal. I.e. 

• Light touch, auditory (hearing) and painful sensations follow pathways that have close connections with our RAS. This is what we might expect as these sensations are often associated with danger. To go back to the example of the fly, you may have been able to ignore the distant buzzing - your RAS effectively filtering it out. However, if the fly suddenly buzzes loudly in your ear and touches your face your RAS would be instantly excited. You would become hyper-alert to the fly but your attention would have moved away from the blog.

Concentration is lost. 

• In contrast, it is thought that deep touch and proprioceptive sensations follow neural pathways which are not so closely connected with our RAS. Indeed, the processing of these types of sensations may actually result in our RAS becoming less excitable. This theory may explain why proprioceptive activities and deep massage help us to feel more grounded and less anxious.

Tatty Bumpkin Crab Yoga  Activity 

Try to do crab pose with your child, or encourage brothers and sisters to join in, as: 

• Young children learn new movements best by copying the actions.
• Research shows that young children bond with their parents and ‘key people’ not only through touch but also by moving with them.
• Crab pose will give you a great opportunity to stretch out tight muscles and to activate your tummy, back, shoulder and hip muscles!

Crab Pose Pointers

• Find a non-slip mat or an area of carpet where you can do crab pose with your child. Make sure you both have enough room around you to avoid bumps and knocks.

• Take off your socks and shoes-far better to do crab pose with bare feet. With bare feet your child will slip less and will be able to do the pose accurately. Interestingly we rely on sensory information passed up through the soles of feet to balance.  

• Start by sitting alongside your child with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor – encourage them to copy you.

• Then show your child how they can place their hands on the floor behind them and then lean back onto their hands to wave their feet in the air.

• Once your child has the idea of taking weight through their arms, encourage them to lean back on their hands again - only this time show them how they can push up through their feet to lift their bottom and hips off the floor. 1, 2, 3, push up to crab!

Push through hands and feet into crab pose!

• Now you should both only be balancing on your hands and feet in crab pose!

Progressions for Crab Pose  

• In crab pose encourage your child to try walking like a crab, forwards, backwards, even sideways. 
• Play crab football with your friends using a foam ball!        

Younger children

• If your child is younger they will find it easier to crab pose - balancing on their shoulders rather than their hands. 

• Guide your child to lie on the mat or carpet with their knees bent and their feet flat on the floor. Then encourage them to lift just their bottom off the floor. 

• You may need to help your child to bend their knees and position their feet flat on the floor so they get the idea of pushing up through their feet to lift their bottom off the floor. 

Help your child to lift their hips off the floor

• To make this activity fun, pass toys underneath! Whilst they are playing with the suggested props supervise your child closely and NEVER leave them unattended, or with another child.

The Tatty Bumpkin Adventure this Week 

Remember, for you and your child to gain the full benefit of all the Tatty Bumpkin Yoga and multi-sensory activities, find out about your local Tatty Bumpkin class at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html. Or, ask your child’s nursery if they are doing Tatty Bumpkin Yoga activity sessions as part of their day. 

Our qualified Tatty Bumpkin Teachers are fully trained in aspects of child development and Yoga and are kept fully up-to-date by our professional team of paediatric physiotherapists, Yoga teachers and musicians. All the Tatty Bumpkin stores are aligned to the Early Years Foundation Stage (England) and  the Curriculum for Excellence (Scotland) this means the sessions not only enhance your child’s physical skills they also develop their communication, social and thinking skills.

Learning 'mindfulness' skills with Tatty Bumpkin

In their Tatty Bumpkin class this week they will have the chance to:

• Improve their physical skills as they move in different ways in crab, dog and airplane poses.
• Develop their imagination and thinking skills as they imagine they are by the sea and visiting the ‘fun day’ with crab!   
• Progress their communication skills as they listen, creep and crawl to Tatty Bumpkin crab song and tell everyone what kind of dog they are going to be.
• But most of all, your child will have fun with others as they fly on the airplane roundabout and ‘have a go’ at the coconut shy!

Love Tatty Bumpkin x

A New Start with Tatty Bumpkin? 

Thinking about a change of career? If you would like the 

• The opportunity to work with kids

• A great sense of job satisfaction and

• Flexible working to fit around your own family

Find out how you could be trained to deliver Baby and Tatty Bumpkin classes in your area at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/business/index.html. 

Tatty Bumpkin’s Seagull Pose - A Core Stability Favourite for School Readiness Skills

By Sue Heron – Training Co-ordinator Tatty Bumpkin and Paediatric Physiotherapist 

Tatty Bumpkin's Yoga inspired seagull pose has plenty of benefits for your child – many of which will help them feel ready for big school.

• Seagull pose helps your child to develop their natural core stability 

As part of their natural development your child will gradually be gaining stability around their ‘core’ – or the middle area of their body. 'Core stability' is essential for writing, dressing and sporting activities, because complex movements of the arms and legs rely on being stable in the middle. Good core strength and stability arises when back, tummy, shoulder and hip muscles are active and strong. As you will see below you can do seagull pose in a number of ways - this means your child can start with one adaptation and then progress onto the more complex when they feel ready.

Think of the 'core' muscles like an apple's core!

• Seagull pose will help your child refine their awareness of their body shape and how it moves

As adults we can change our body position automatically. For example, we don’t have to think too hard to move from sitting to kneeling. For young children changes of position still require cognitive thought. See how hard your 3-5 year old has to think to move quickly from a sitting to a kneeling position or into the crawl position just by copying your movements. 

The more chances children have to practice these changes of position the easier it becomes. This is partly due to your child building up a map of their body in their brain- their ‘body schema’ and using this as a guide for any new movement. As your child refines their body schema they will naturally feel much more confident about their body – so important especially if they are feeling a little overwhelmed by big school.

Enjoy feeling confident in your body!

• Seagull pose stretches muscles groups which can be prone to tightness.

Oh dear – the pull of the mobile phone, IPad or TV can be strong and unfortunately these gadgets encourage your child to sit in a slumped position with their shoulders hunched and drawn in. 

However, this can be counteracted by guiding your child to do a few activities throughout their day which encourage a good stretch. Seagull pose will prompt your child to stretch their back muscles and those across their chest

• Seagull pose will give your child another movement opportunity during their day

Did you know children aged 5 years and under should be active for 3 hours a day http://www.bhfactive.org.uk/earlyyearsguidelines/index.html and children over 5 years need to have at least 60 minutes of activity daily https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/507158/CYP_infographic.pdf

At first this can sound daunting – however do remember every minute of activity counts! You might be surprised how soon 3 hours is reached, Seagull pose will encourage your child to be active for at least 10 minutes – maybe more!

• Seagull pose can be FUN!

Let’s face it some exercise can be pretty boring and unexciting for children. However, if you are being a seagull on a pirate’s shoulder – this is altogether a different matter!

Tatty Bumpkin’s Seagull Yoga Activity

Try to do seagull pose with your child, or encourage brothers and sisters to join in, as: 

• Children,  definitely those under 3 years, learn new movements by copying others.
• Research shows that young children bond with their parents and ‘key people’ not only through touch but also by moving with them.
• Seagull pose will give you a chance to stretch out your own tight muscles and to activate those tummy and shoulder muscles!

• Find a clear space on the carpet or a mat to do seagull pose with your child. Make sure you both have enough space to stretch your arms out wide.
• Take off shoes and socks. Your child will benefit from doing seagull pose barefoot, then they will be able to bend their toes and feet easily and will receive accurate sensory information through their feet.
• Start seagull pose sitting back on your heels, or sitting with your legs crossed. Encourage your child to stretch their arms out wide to either side – really focus on this so your child stretches their muscles and feels how far their body can reach. 
• Once your arms are out wide - you're BIG seagulls with BIG wings - guide your child to move their arms up and down. Encourage your child to do this fairly slowly, with control, then they will be really using their shoulder, upper back and tummy muscles. Talk to your child about flapping your beautiful big wings as your fly across the sea. Maybe you have to fly over a rough waves so you need to do BIG flaps! 
• If your child loves pirates, you can be a pirate’s pet seagull.

You are big, strong seagulls - with big wings out wide!

Seagull Pose Progressions

• If your child is confident doing seagull pose in sitting – guide them to kneel up so their bottom is off their heels or the floor - this is called high kneeling. High kneeling is quite a complex position for your child (but they will be refining their body schema and balance skills as they do it!) so you may have to show them a few times. 
• Guide your child to flap their big wings in high kneeling. As your child does this adaptation they will be activating their whole 'core' - their shoulder, back, tummy and hip muscles.
• If your child is older (4-5 years) they may want to have a go at doing seagull pose with one foot forward – or in a half kneeling position – see picture below. As they flap their seagull wings in this position they will be activating their care muscles even more.

Half kneeling -  Hard to do!

If your child finds these progressions difficult and they unable to do big, wide wing flaps go back to the the previous position. It is much better to do this pose accurately.

Love Tatty Bumpkin x

The Tatty Bumpkin Adventure this Week

If you would like to find out about your local Tatty Bumpkin classes do visit our web page http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html.

Our qualified Tatty Bumpkin Teachers are fully trained in aspects of child development and Yoga and are kept fully up-to-date by our professional team of paediatric physiotherapists, Yoga teachers and musicians. All the Tatty Bumpkin stores are aligned to the Early Years Foundation Stage and the Curriculum for Excellence this means the sessions not only enhance your child’s physical skills they also develop their communication, social and thinking skills.

A New Start with Tatty Bumpkin? 

Or, maybe, you are thinking of a new career which gives you:

• The opportunity to work with kids
• A great sense of job satisfaction and
• Flexible working to fit around your own family

Find out how you could be trained to deliver Baby and Tatty Bumpkin classes in your area at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/business/index.html. 

Introducing Baby Bumpkin!

Tatty Bumpkin’s Downwards Dog Pose -The 'All-rounder for your Child!' Strengthens core muscles, activates body senses, progresses fine motor skills and develops 'spatial reasoning' ..

By Sue Heron – Training Co-ordinator Tatty Bumpkin and Paediatric Physiotherapist 

On her adventure this week Tatty Bumpkin celebrates the Queen's Birthday. 
She goes to London and has fun playing with the Queen's corgi's dogs - whilst doing downwards dog pose of course! 

Gently stretching and strengthening key muscle groups whilst activating the body senses - Dog pose is a great all-rounder for both you and your child. Dog pose can provide your child with the ideal ‘movement break’ if they are finding it hard to settle to do homework or struggling to calm to themselves. 

But the benefits of 'downwards dog' pose don't stop there - doing Dog pose, and using words to describe it, helps your child develop their 'spatial reasoning' skills.  

Spatial reasoning, involves the ability to locate and move our own bodies and objects in space, either physically or in our 'mind's eye'. (National Research Council, 2006). 
When a baby makes their first movements they are developing their spatial reasoning - as they start to understand how they interact with other people and the world around them.

More complex spatial reasoning skills include:

• Being able to identify, handle different shaped objects and possibly change the way they look.   
• To understand how objects and ourselves relate to one another in space 

Why is spatial reasoning important?  Spatial reasoning skills are thought to be particularly important for maths. People working in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) are thought to have good spatial reasoning skills. Spatial thinking is also important for many other careers - architecture, graphic design, computer sciences, biology, physics, chemistry, geology, geography and even medicine  all require strong spatial skills.  http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/12/16/steps-to-help-foster-a-preschoolers-spatial-reasoning-skills/. http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/LNSPayingAttention.pdf

Crucially spatial reasoning and skills are not fixed at birth - they can be learnt and improved with practice. You can encourage your young child's spatial reasoning:

• Through physical play. As your child moves their body they will be gaining a deeper understanding of the dimensions of their body and how it relates to objects and other people. 
• By using gestures as you talk to them i.e. drawing circles in the air as you talk about the 'round' apple 
• Using 'spatial' words as you play i.e. 'up' , 'down' , 'inside' and 'upside down'

http://www.letsgrowkids.org/blog/spatial-thinking-sky-not-limit 

Dog Pose – Tatty Bumpkin’s Yoga Activity for the Week

Stretch into Dog Pose - then see if you can wag your tail!

Try to do dog pose with you child as they will find it much easier to copy you and doing the pose together will support the bonding process between you both. 
However, do respect your body, if you know you have any health issues e.g. back, neck  or wrist issues always take extra care and stop if your feel any pain. For further information on whether this pose is suitable for you always consult a health professional.  

• Find a clear place on a non-slip surface (e.g. mat or carpet)  where you can do Dog pose with your child without bumps! 

• Remember to take off socks and shoes – this will enable you and your child to use your feet effectively as you balance in Dog pose. 

• Start Dog pose by encouraging your child to move onto their hands and knees with you -  in cat pose.

Start in Cat pose

• Check to make sure your own and your child’s hands are flat on the floor ideally with your fingers spread apart a little.

• Now gently push up through your hands and feet and lift your hips (bottom) up into the air – into dog pose. You and your child should now just be balancing on your hands and feet. You can show your older child how they can tuck their toes under their feet to help them push up through the floor.

• Keep your knees bent to start with - this will help you and your child to stretch out your back. Then see if you can straighten your knees one at a time - but be careful not to ‘lock’ them. If your child is hyper-mobile at the knees and likely to over-extend them - encourage them to imagine they have a little butterfly under their toes – which they must not squash! This will help your child to only press their feet gently into the floor.  

• Dog pose is a ‘back’ stretch. So if you, or your older child, feels tightness down the back of your legs and knees as you do the pose - bend your knees a little more.
  As you do this you will be able you to lengthen your back further. 

• Encourage your child to see if they can now look through their legs by putting their head between their upper arms – seeing the world from upside down! 

• Finally you can bark at each other or even ‘go for a walk’ – moving forwards, backwards and even sideways across the mat, carpet or garden! 

• If your child is older - encourage them to lift one leg in the air to wag their doggy tails!

Dogs waving their tails!

Benefits of Tatty Bumpkin’s Dog Yoga Activity for Your Child 

Dog pose will give your child the opportunity to:

1. Strengthen their ‘core’ muscles for fine motor skills
Dog pose helps your child to ‘waken up’ and strengthen all their core muscles i.e. their back, tummy, shoulder and hip muscles, but especially their shoulder muscles. Activity in these muscle groups can have a positive impact on your child’s fine motor skills such as writing and dressing. 

2. Stretch and lengthen their back muscles. 
In dog pose your child will have the chance to gently stretch and lengthen their spinal muscles. Whilst sitting on sofas or chairs or carrying heavy rucksacks it's just so easy to collapse into a the slumped or slightly crooked spinal position - over time this posture can start to feel 'normal' for your child. If your child does dog pose as part of their day they will increase their awareness of what a straight, lengthened spine feels like. 

How a slumped posture may affect your child see http://wellnessforlife.com.sg/works/poor-posture/

Carrying a bag on one shoulder puts the back into a crooked or misaligned position see http://onsitewellnesscheck.com/page5/page5.html

3. Stimulate their senses for sensory organisation and learning.
When your child does Dog pose they will be stimulating several of their senses:

• their visual sense 
• their sense of touch - as they feel the mat with their hands and feet
• their two body senses:
• their proprioceptive sense and 
• their vestibular sense. 

The proprioceptive sense tells us about our body position. It's stimulated every time we move - as we use our muscles or stretch and bend our joints. When we push or pull or lift heavy things we are really stimulating this sense. As your child does dog pose - pushing up on their hands and feet to lift their body up from the floor they will be activating their proprioception sense.  
Proprioception is often called the 'safe sense' by therapists as activities which stimulate this sense tend to have an organising effect on the brain. For example if your child is finding it hard to calm down - doing dog pose may be helpful. Alternatively if your child is finding it hard to keep their focus - doing dog pose may help them to gently alert themselves without making them over-excited. 
The vestibular sense tells us where our head is in space. Again your child will stimulate this sense as they do Dog pose.  
Doing ‘sensory rich’ activities, which involve the steady stimulation of several senses, will help your child to organise their senses. This sensory organisation is fundamental for learning.  

4. Relax their upper back and neck muscles. 
After sitting at a school desk, or after carrying a heavy rucksack, for a period of time children may experience tension in their upper back and neck muscles – Dog pose is a great reliever for this tension. 

5. Promote Spatial Reasoning Skills 
As you child does dog pose they will be exploring the space around them in a different way and so developing their early spatial understanding. As you do dog pose with your young child talk about:

• Being 'upside down' 
• Lifting your paw, or tail, 'up' in the air or putting it 'down' on the mat 
• Waving your tails 'side' to 'side' 
• The shape your bodies are making - triangles?

Love Tatty Bumpkin x

Find out about your local Tatty Bumpkin class at http://www.tattybumpkin.com/classes/find-class.html. Or, ask your child’s nursery if they are doing Tatty Bumpkin Yoga activity sessions as part of their day. 

A New Start with Tatty Bumpkin?  

Or, maybe, you are thinking of a new career which gives you:

• The opportunity to work with kids
• A great sense of job satisfaction and
• Flexible working to fit around your own family

Find out how you could be trained to deliver Baby and Tatty Bumpkin classes at: http://www.tattybumpkin.com/business/index.html.