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Yoga for the very young By JONEL ALECCIA Serious yoga, this is not. How could it be, what with people hopping like frogs, stretching like cats and flapping their knees like so many butterflies, complete with fingertip antennae? "Ribbet! Ribbet! Ribbet!" two dozen pint-size yoga students murmur, unable to refrain from matching noises to poses. "Meow! Meow! Meow! Purr! Purr!" But on Wednesday mornings at the Southern Oregon University preschool, serious is not precisely the point. Instead, yoga teacher Geri Esposito strives for stretching, for spirit and for fun as she introduces 3- to 6-year-olds to the postures of the ancient Hindu philosophical practice. The SOU class is one of several yoga sessions for kids that Esposito has introduced to the Ashland community. "I want kids to get in touch with their internal power and energy," says Esposito. "I wish I would have been exposed to this." As it was, Esposito was in her mid-20s when she first embraced yoga, which teaches that people can attain spiritual enlightenment through mental and physical discipline. Now 50, she has practiced and taught the concepts for 25 years in New York, San Francisco and now Ashland. "I do a half hour of yoga in the morning and I think, `Oh, God, I can face the day,"' she says. When she moved to the Rogue Valley five years ago, leaving behind a life as a vice president for Citibank in New York, Esposito was determined to share that secret with young people. "Kids nowadays, if they do any physical activity, it's team sports. It's competitive, it's aerobic," Esposito says. "Or they watch TV and they're on the computer. Either way, they don't get a lot of stretching." So Esposito put together a curriculum of stretches, poses and simply silly postures, all based more or less on traditional yoga teachings. "Let's start by standing up like a mountain!" she tells a circle of SOU preschoolers. "Our feet are grounded in the earth. Our hands are stretching to the sky. Let's take the energy from the earth and the energy from the sky and bring it into us." Puzzled looks cross a few small faces, but the kids lift their hands just the same. And when Esposito churns her fists and suggests they all send "extra energy out to the sea," the youngsters copy her with gusto. The children like it even better when Esposito suggests they become animals -- a frog, a cat, a dog, a flamingo. Of course, not everything goes smoothly. "I don't know why I keep crashing into things," says Vincent Brinegar, 6, whose career as a flamingo is short-lived. "A giraffe!" someone else shouts. "I want to be a giraffe!" So they become giraffes, stretching their necks forward and back, side to side, impersonating the long-necked creatures. Fun as the postures appear, they have serious underpinnings, notes Esposito, who also teaches at the Ashland Yoga Center. Being a tree -- arms raised, one foot propped on the opposite inner thigh -- teaches balance. Cat stretches elongate the spine and ensure flexibility. The butterfly posture is a preliminary meditation pose. And the energy exercises certainly defuse kids' energy, says Chris Wieczorek, director of the SOU preschool. "It helps them kind of relax," she says. "I can see a big difference after Geri's been here." Indeed, by the time Esposito concludes class with a calming visualization, the kids seem ready for nap time. "Imagine you're a sponge in the ocean," she says. "The ocean is holding you up and you're floating." Smiles cross the faces of several children, who lie, eyes closed, clearly enjoying their sea voyage. For Jonathan Mills, 6, of Phoenix, the ocean visualization is the best part of yoga class. "I just like how you lay down and think about your mind," he says. Jonathan's mother, Donna Mills, an SOU professor of health education, says she's glad he has been exposed to yoga. "He loves it!" she says. "When I ask him about it, he acts out all the animals for me. I don't know what it's doing for him long-term or anything, but I'm glad they're doing it." Advocates of yoga claim the long-term benefits include increased physical, mental and emotional well-being. Esposito says she finds a spiritual dimension in her practice as well. "I'm a type-A personality," she says. "It helps me center myself and relax and be focused. It gets me in touch with whatever you want to call the universal energy. It's remembering that it's there." Whether children reap those benefits from a few lessons is debatable, but there's no reason not to let them try, says Marc Heller, an Ashland chiropractor. As long as the exercises aren't prolonged or extreme, even young kids can practice yoga, he says. Not to worry, says Esposito, who puts no pressure on children to achieve or maintain poses. "If you can't put your foot that high, put it down lower," she says. "It's not how well you do the pose. I think for children, the best part is it's not competitive. It's fun." Geri Esposito's yoga for kids classes are available to the public through the Ashland Yoga Center, 485 A St. Aimed at kids ages 6 to 10, they're held from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturdays. The cost is $5 per class. Interested patrons also can come to the center's open house, planned for Saturday, April 24. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA