Partner Seated Sunrise
A K-5 Mindful Movement Partner Practice
Students sit cross-legged on the floor across from a partner and press their palms to their partners’ palms without interlacing fingers. Together the partners inhale while extending their arms out to the sides and then all the way up overhead in a sunrise motion. Then they exhale as they lower their arms all the way back down in a sunset motion. They repeat this sequence several more times, linking their breath to their movements. To exit the pose, students separate their hands and lower them to their laps.
Students sit cross-legged on the floor across from a partner and press their palms to their partners’ palms without interlacing fingers. Together the partners inhale while extending their arms out to the sides and then all the way up overhead in a sunrise motion. Then they exhale as they lower their arms all the way back down in a sunset motion. They repeat this sequence several more times, linking their breath to their movements. To exit the pose, students separate their hands and lower them to their laps. When practiced regularly, this pose may help students improve the flexibility of their upper backs and shoulders.
Preliminary research into the impact of yoga training in schools suggests that yoga may be beneficial to child development. For example, early studies indicate that yoga training is associated with increases in students’ perceived self-concept (Scime & Cook-Cottone, 2008) as well as improvements to their emotional balance and well-being (Stück & Gloeckner, 2005). Students who participate in school-based yoga programs also experience fewer maladaptive responses to stress, including, for example, less rumination, fewer intrusive thoughts, and less emotional arousal (Mendelson et al., 2010).
Yoga programs are also associated with improved classroom readiness. Students who participate in yoga training experience enhanced concentration and greater abilities to function under pressure (Ehud, An, & Avshalom, 2010), and they tend to enact fewer disruptive behaviors in school (Berger, Silver, & Stein, 2009).
Yoga programs may also offer physical health benefits to students. A systematic review of the therapeutic benefits of yoga for children found that yoga enhances children’s motor performance and cardiorespiratory health, while it decreases children’s resting heart rate, cortisol levels, and symptoms related to childhood-asthma. The same review also found evidence of yoga’s positive impact on children’s musculoskeletal system, including by enhancing children’s flexibility and strength (Galantino, Galbavy, & Quinn, 2008).
Yoga training appears to be associated with relatively few risks. At least one adverse event has been observed in research on the impact of yoga on children, however. An individual was unaware of a preexisting condition that was exacerbated by an inverted yoga posture (de Barros, Bazzaz, Gheith, Siam, & Moster, 2008). Thus, educators should exercise caution when teaching more advanced poses to students in school settings.
Audience: K-5 students
Time: Any time of day
Duration: 5 minutes per session
Space: Classroom
Social context: Partner practice or group practice
Materials
- One yoga mat per pair of students.
- Enough floor space that students can spread out.
Setup
- Arrange the yoga mats, ensuring that students have enough space to move without bumping into one another.
- If you have enough space, consider arranging the yoga mats in a circle so that you can see each student from your own mat.
Visual Aids
You do not need to read the included script verbatim. Adapt the language so that it is appropriate for your students in particular.
It is perfectly appropriate to simplify the breathing cues, particularly when you first introduce the pose to your students. You might invite students to simply count several breaths in the pose, or you might opt to omit explicit reference to breath altogether.
It is not important for students to get the pose exactly right. Instead, focus on helping them build mind-body awareness each time you practice.
Offer students positive reinforcements throughout each practice. Focus on qualities and behaviors they can control, like their focus, effort, or persistence. Be specific whenever possible. This will help your students develop a growth mindset.
Before introducing this posture, brainstorm as a class what it means to be a good partner during partner poses. Discuss how the students can help keep each other safe and consider creating a list of class agreements for partner poses that are easily visible throughout the practice. For example, students might agree that if one partner feels uncomfortable and says “stop,” the other partner will immediately pause and determine how to help.
If you’d like, this movement can be done in silence. Use a bell to signal the beginning and end of the practice.
Begin by sitting cross-legged on the floor facing your partner.
Scoot toward your partner so that your knees are touching your partner’s knees.
Wonderful.
Now press the palms of your hands to the palms of your partner’s hands.
Keep your fingers straight rather than interlacing them.
As you breathe in, keep your hands pressed against your partner’s hands and raise them out to your sides and up over your heads in a sunrise motion.
As you breathe out, keep your hands pressed to your partner’s hands and lower them back down in a sunset motion.
Wonderful. Let’s repeat that two more times.
As you breathe in, slowly lift your arms in a big sunrise motion.
As you breathe out, slowly lower your arms in a big sunset motion.
Take another deep breath in and imagine the sun rising high in the sky as you raise your arms up.
And now breathe out, imagining the sun dipping behind the clouds as it sets for the night.
Separate your hands and lower them gently to your lap.
You could also do this pose with students sitting back to back. The following is a sample script for that variation:
Begin by sitting comfortably on the floor back to back with your partner with your legs crossed.
Scoot toward your partner so your backs are touching.
Pause here and notice how your partner’s back feels against your own. Try lining up your head, neck, shoulders, and spine with your partner’s.
Lift your arms out to your sides so that they are just a little bit above the mat.
Now touch the back of your arms to the back of your partner’s arms.
Wonderful.
Take a big breath in, and as you do, keep your arms against your partner’s and raise them out to your sides and over your head in a sunrise motion.
Excellent, as you breathe out, keep your arms against your partner’s and lower them back down in a sunset motion.
Wonderful. Let’s do that again, but this time, in addition to focusing on your own breath see if you can feel your partner’s
breath. Notice whether your partner’s back presses against yours when you both breathe in. And check to see whether that
feeling changes when you both breathe out.
Are you ready to try it?
Take a big breath in, and slowly raise your arms out and up over your heads. Did you feel your partner’s breath?
As you breathe out, slowly lower your arms back down. Did your partner breathe out too?
Wonderful. (Repeat as many times as you’d like).
Now place your hands in your lap.
Great job.
Berger, D.L., Silver, E.J., & Stein, R.E. (2009). Effects of yoga on inner-city children’s well-being: A pilot study. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 15, 36–42.
de Barros, D.S., Bazzaz, S., Gheith, M.E., Siam, G.A., & Moster, M.R. (2008). Progressive optic neuropathy in congenital glaucoma associated with the Sirsasana yoga posture. Ophthalmic Surgery Lasers and Imaging Retina, 39, 339–340.
Ehud, M., An, B.D., & Avshalom, S. (2010). Here and now: Yoga in Israeli schools. International Journal of Yoga, 3, 42–47.
Galantino, M. L., Galbavy, R., & Quinn, L. (2008). Therapeutic effects of yoga for children: A systematic review of the literature. Pediatric Physical Therapy, 20(1), 66-80.
Mendelson, T., Greenberg, M.T., Dariotis, J.K., Gould, L.F., Rhoades, B.L., & Leaf, P.J. (2010). Feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a school-based mindfulness intervention for urban youth. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38, 985–994.
Scime, M., & Cook-Cottone, C. (2008). Primary prevention of eating disorders: A constructivist integration of mind and body strategies. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 41(2), 134-142.
Serwacki, M., & Cook-Cottone, C. (2012). Yoga in the schools: A systematic review of the literature. International Journal of Yoga Therapy, 22, 101–110.
Stück, M., & Gloeckner, N. (2005). Yoga for children in the mirror of the science: Working spectrum and practice fields of the training of relaxation with elements of yoga for children. Early Childhood Development and Care, 175, 371–377.