Exercise, Yoga and Relaxation
By Marsh Naidoo
Who is Maddison Balk?
She is a pediatric Occupational Therapist and founder of Let’s Yoga Perth in Western Australia. Her focus is on improving a child’s emotional regulation, motor development and social skills. This is achieved by breath awareness/control, mindfulness strategies, connecting with others through games and partner work, and strength-based postures that also target balance, motor planning, coordination and fine motor grasps.
Madison Balk of Let’s Yoga Perth
Maddison coaches’ parents and children strategies they can apply at home, in the community and school to feel calm, accepted, emotionally/sensory regulated, confident and develop/sustain friendships.
Maddison's Takeaways:
Yoga is for Anyone who can Breathe.
It creates balance by connecting the Body, Mind and Heart.
The fundamental techniques of yoga can be adapted to include diverse abilities.
What Yoga Is and Is Not!
She believes that yoga is not the images you see on social media of young and fit people doing extremely strong or flexible postures. Maddison promotes that yoga is simply connecting the mind, body and heart through easy breath techniques, postures and movements that are supportive for the body and connecting with the heart by tuning into the feelings we have. Her goal is to make yoga accessible, fun and empowering for children with additional needs (disabilities). She engages children through play (as we know this is when children are most calm) to trial breath techniques, explore their movement and share what they are feeling.
So How Does Adaptive Work?
Maddison’s yoga has a multi-sensory approach to ensure the children with additional needs are able to sustain adequate regulation/arousal levels, understand and attend to their best capacity and have an overall positive experience.
She also ensures that the children’s therapy goals are tailored into the yoga sessions as she believes that it is easier to work towards therapy goals when a child is calm, feeling empowered and having fun. At www.letsyogaperth.com you can access fun accessible yoga videos where Maddison shares her favorite adaptive yoga strategies. You can also reach Maddison through facebook at letsyogaperth and on instagram @Lets_Yoga_Perth.
Check out Part 1 of the Quarantine Strategy Series based on Mental Health by Rose Reif
Disclosure: I would like to thank Maddison for giving Kellan and me the opportunity to take part in her Virtual Yoga Workshop. Thank you Maddison, you are a gifted teacher!
Disclaimer: Always consult with your physician before starting any new activity for you or your child.
Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
<silence>
Kellan Julal (00:13):
Welcome to the Raising Kellan Podcast . Motivate, inspire and educate parents raising children with special needs. Remember, al
(00:20):
ways get to the top of your mountain. Bye guys.
Marsh Naidoo (00:24):
Hi everyone. This is your host, Marsh Naidoo, and today we have an awesome podcast lined up for you.
Marsh Naidoo (00:38):
Good morning to Madison Bulk all the way over in Perth, Australia. Madison is owner and creator of Let's Yoga Perth. Good morning, Madison. Oh, good evening <laugh>.
Madison Bulk (00:54):
Good morning Marsh. And good evening from my side.
Marsh Naidoo (00:58):
I'm so glad that you were able to join US. Medicine is actually going to give us talk about Lets Yoga Path, as well as give us some strategies for our series. We are actually doing a quarantine strategy series where we discuss different mindsets and different techniques to help us during this difficult time when a lot of us are self-quarantined or homebound. So I am so grateful that Madison is able to join us this morning. Madison is owner and creator of Let's Yoga Perth. So Madison, give us a little bit background information about who you are.
Madison Bulk (01:52):
Okay, so obviously my name's Madison and I am a occupational therapist working in the field of pediatrics. So children I've previously had experience working in mental health hospitals, physical rehab hospitals, and then for the past four year or five years now is purely focusing on children. Before that, I was just working in the disability field as a carer for children with brain injuries. And so I had about 10 years of experience together in the disability field. And then around about two or three years ago, I completed my yoga instructor training and then decided to take that a bit further to then do yoga teaching for people or for children with developmental delays, disabilities, and then neurological conditions as well. So that was my they call it adaptive yoga training.
Marsh Naidoo (03:02):
So what actually is yoga?
Madison Bulk (03:05):
So first of all, I thought I would say what yoga is not. I think all around the world and with social media, there's this idea that yoga is, it's for flexible people. It's for people that have strength. It's for that thin model that's wearing active wear. And you see her on Instagram or Facebook. Yoga is not that. Yoga is for anyone that can breathe. So everyday people are all abilities. And what yoga means is uniting the mind, body, and heart through physical and a mental practice. And so the traditional meaning of yoga is stealing the fluctuations of the mind to arrive in a place of happiness and bliss.
(04:14):
And yes, yoga originally comes from India as a religious and spiritual practice, but connecting to your breath, engaging in mindful movement can be done for anyone. And it is quite a western practice at the moment. And the World Health Organization even says that yoga or everyone should have a yoga practice because it improves their muscular cardio, respiratory fitness, their bone and functional health. It reduces and prevents mental health conditions like depression, anxiety, feelings of loneliness. And then it also just any feelings of exclusion that people might be feeling cuz yoga is a community. And then we get that sense of being a part of something for those living with chronic conditions and disability. Yoga can help with acceptance, any grief that they're going through any additional mental health conditions they might have, as well as just developing a sense of calmness, working on their strength, endurance, their physical wellbeing, which then as well improves confidence. And it also nice just to be in, I guess a part of your health goal for everyone. So you can see Marsh, it's very western. It's not just a practice that is done for certain religions.
Marsh Naidoo (06:10):
I totally get that. Madison. So let me ask you this. What about your personal journey? When did you discover yoga? And more interesting to me is when did you realize that this would be an awesome therapeutic activity that would benefit kids?
Madison Bulk (06:29):
Yes. So I guess I had been always, I've done yoga for many years now since I was mid-teens. And I did that for my mental wellbeing. And then when I became an occupational therapist working across the many different fields that I had mentioned before, I did recognize that just feelings of well, loneliness, hopelessness anxiety were very common. Whether I was working in older adults in the hospital and with kids. And so I knew that yoga had improved my mental wellbeing and that's when I really started to just apply some of my practices into their sessions. And so that might have been when a client had entered my therapy session. We just focus on our breath become grounded, and then we actually go through and do the intervention that they were seeing me for. But then two years ago so initially I had quite a strong practice, it was very fast and it was quite what's the word, advanced. And then I was diagnosed with two autoimmune conditions, which included arthritis fatigue and general muscle deconditioning. And so I wasn't able to engage in yoga. And because I was a part of that community and I did rely heavily on yoga for my mental wellbeing, I couldn't participate in that anymore, which meant all those feelings of, well, the benefits that you get from yoga. So the calmness, the confidence the feelings of acceptance all started to reduce. And I felt really excluded because I had lost my community that I was a part of.
(08:42):
And it was when I saw an adaptive yoga instructor for myself who taught me how to have a soul-fulfilling yoga practice on days that I can't stand on days where I can only sustain adequate endurance levels for 20 minutes for days where my balance was off. And so that made me feel so empowered and I felt like I could engage in such a meaningful task again. And this made me think that there aren't many instructors like this, especially for people that do have more severe chronic conditions or disabilities.
Marsh Naidoo (09:44):
All right guys, we are gonna take a short break for now. So Madison has explained to us what yoga is and how it could potentially benefits us. It combines the way our mind and body can sink together using our breath. To learn more about adaptive yoga, check out Madison's website letsyogaperth.com. All right, today is April the 30th and tomorrow is mayday. Mayday is going to be our community day here in Berg, Tennessee. And Steve Herron of fixmypc365 is going to put up the art wall on the raising kien.org website, that's raisingkellan.org, where you can come and look at some beautiful artwork that has been done by the kids as they interpreted micro foster's original design. Without further ado, here is Madison Edison.
Marsh Naidoo (11:01):
Madison, we are gonna start talking a little bit about what's going on currently and us being isolated at home. Are there any specific strategies that you can offer or advice that you can offer?
Madison Bulk (11:18):
Definitely so with children, to connect with the breath, I often try to use every day breathing items that you have in the house. And so whether you've got troubles we can focus on breathing in through our nose and out through our mouth. And a nice mindfulness activity that I also like is simply if you're doing, you can do it sitting in your kitchen where you are Marsh, you can do it in your backyard going for a walk, just recognizing three things you can see, three things you can hear, three things you can feel, and then even say when you're eating at home. So when your child's feeding, seeing if they can sit there without any distractions and just talk about how the food tastes. That's mindfulness is reducing distractions and zoning in. Another nice thing that I've been encouraging my families to do is at the end of the day, just think about or even tell each other three things that went well, three things that made you happy.
Marsh Naidoo (12:45):
You mentioned a technique which I've been reading a lot about Madison and that includes mindfulness as well. Mm-hmm. As using mindfulness to help with self-regulation, I'm gonna kind of use your OT skills a little bit, if you don't mind explaining from that perspective.
Madison Bulk (13:07):
Self-regulation is the ability to maintain, I guess an optimal level of arousal or level of alertness. And so that might look like we're feeling calm, focused. We are our bodies still, our minds still and mindfulness whether, So mindfulness strategies help because they take us out of that worrying mind. So if you imagine your brain and there's lots of thoughts racing around by doing something as simple as focusing on your breath through bubbles or any of the strategies that I provided, we are getting out of the head and more into the heart and it's neurologically calming the nervous system down cuz those thoughts have such a big impact on the physical body. So we want to calm the mind to calm the body.
Marsh Naidoo (14:23):
So it's no good just telling your child calm down it. How does that work? Because with kids having tantrums, how do you provide the parent with strategies to help that child calm down?
Madison Bulk (14:39):
Yes, you've definitely said that, correct. I mean, even if someone tells me to calm down, I get even more angry because it's not that simple. Even getting a child to just, or if you say to your child, focus on your breath, it's still not that easy. You need to give them something to do, give them a mindfulness strategy to do so then they can focus on that and get out of their body will get out of their head and into their body. Sorry. So I generally like to use physical props for our children with additional needs to make it more like an activity that's fun because we know for children, play is their most calming activity. And so all of these yoga strategies, whether it's movement or whether it's breathing, are done through play because that calms their bodies and their minds.
Marsh Naidoo (15:46):
Awesome. Madison, I've actually got my candle with me
Madison Bulk (15:52):
And lovely,
Marsh Naidoo (15:53):
I've got my candle with me because I think mm-hmm. <affirmative>, incorporating that sensory aspect is an very effective way to teach a child consciously how to breathe on a subconscious level. We all can knock that out. I mean it's just what we do, but to consciously engage the right mechanism, it's a whole different ball game. <affirmative>. So I've got my candle and I've got some peppermint, which is what helps me, so mm-hmm.
Madison Bulk (16:31):
<affirmative> so much. Oh lovely.
Marsh Naidoo (16:36):
Here we go.
Madison Bulk (16:38):
I have a visual for you because not all children can just hear your instructions and follow them sometimes that they need that additional layer of communication, especially if they are feeling overwhelmed just hearing it isn't enough. And so by visually seeing it, it helps them get into that more conscious mind. And so what I would do and what I'm going to do with you, Marsh, I'm going to verbally give you the instruction but also point to what you are going to do. So we get the flower, we bring it to our nose and we smell, we go to the candle and we blow the candle, we breathe in the flower, then we go and breathe out the candle. And I'd just like to add Marsh some children actually find it really difficult to have that controlled breath out. And so even just the process of slowly holding the flower to your nose, slowly bringing the candle to your mouth, that's mindfulness. And then gradually they can start to, they'll learn to start using their breath to their movement.
Marsh Naidoo (18:26):
Okay. Wow. Madison, I think we've covered all the topics, my darling
Madison Bulk (18:35):
<laugh>, Right?
Marsh Naidoo (18:37):
I think the last one we were gonna touch on is during this time where you guys may not be able to necessarily engage with your patients or clients in a yoga studio, how are your delivering or providing your services?
Madison Bulk (18:56):
Yes. So it is quite different obviously similar to many other services usually in workshops, it's a very hands-on approach from myself and my assistant. So we are guiding the child's body through the movement. It's very different online. So we're doing online zoom sessions where the parent is with the child and I guide the parent to help move the child through the postures. Or if the child is able to do it independently, then they can. And so I offer group sessions, I'm doing individual sessions as well through online. And then I also have an online platform, so a resource library that anyone can access. It's at www.let'syogaperth.com. And there you'll see me offer simple sensory techniques for breathing seated yoga sequences for those with reduced mobility. I go through yoga stories whilst offering different adaptations of how to do a posture. So it is quite different to how I would offer my services in person, but we have to make do, I guess.
Marsh Naidoo (20:26):
I totally understand. And just a heads up, for our listeners out there, as always with the information we provide always check with your doctor to make sure that you have clearance to perform any new activity. Madison. What a pleasure. Thank you for taking time out to educate us and empower us with this knowledge. And I that resource you're talking about that's on your website, Letsyogaperth.com. We are definitely gonna check that out. I have already, and I also enjoyed the blog you wrote so I would encourage our listeners to check that out. Any last words before we go, my dear?
Madison Bulk (21:17):
I guess I would just really like to emphasize that if you can breathe, you can do yoga.
Marsh Naidoo (21:24):
Thank you Madison. Until we see each other again next time. Alright.
Madison Bulk (21:29):
Yes, <laugh>. Thank you Marsh.
Marsh Naidoo (21:33):
Well guys, we have come to the end of another episode of Raising Kellan. Next week we would talk to Misha Davidoff a New Leaf Preschool in Nashville, Tennessee, and he's going to be talking about the benefit of being outdoors and the restorative power of nature. So until we see all the next time, as always remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.