Family Focus
A group of families start their first yoga class.
Keri Guten Cohen
Story Development Editor
Youthful Yoga
Adat Shalom's new class emphasizes fun and spirituality.
Left: Yoga instructor Lisa Chottiner of Farmington Hills demonstrates a yoga position.
On the right is Carly Goldring, 7, of West Bloomfield.
Right: A very limber Julie Klein, 7, of Waterford in a yoga pose
A
dat Shalom member Marni
Foster came up with an idea to
blend yoga and family time, and
a new class was born at the synagogue.
At the first Yoga and Yiddishkeit Jr. class
on March 4, yoga instructor Lisa Chottiner,
who teaches a nursery yoga class at Adat
Shalom in Farmington Hills, put more
than 20 adults and their children in grades
K-4 through the paces — or poses.
"My 61/2-year-old daughter loves yoga,
as do I, and the poses we did were chal-
lenging yet manageable and made inter-
esting by the animal names [of the poses]
and matching stories:' Foster said.
"Rabbi [Rachel] Shere ends the class
with an insightful, creative and scholarly
lesson that ties it all together."
Rabbi Shere said, "Through engaging
poses and stories, the kids are able to relax
and unwind while having fun at the same
time.
"We teach the kids that they need not
compare themselves to others, but only
to their 'best self, to the Divine image
within. The,practice of Jewish meditation,
like that of yoga, focuses attention on the
breath!'
The Yoga and Yiddishkeit Jr. class is
at 12:15 p.m. the first Sunday of every
month and is open to the community at
no cost. Li
March 15 ' 2007
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