Yoga for Symbolic Play 119likes, beliefs, and feelings. Recognizing these differences underlies
children’s ability to assume different roles in play. For example, in
a patient-doctor scenario, a child could assume the role of the
doctor and an adult could pretend to be the patient.
In some yoga poses, children can take on the roles of other
persons. Examples of these so-called “people poses” include
woodchopper, ice skater, skier, rock star, hero, archer, ninja, dancer,
and baby in addition to the warriors previously mentioned in the
earlier discussion of thematic content. Figure 8.4 illustrates a boy
in dancer pose, one of several people poses.
Figure 8.4 Dancer pose
The self-other dimension of play is also relevant to children’s
assuming the roles of both follower and leader during yoga practice.
In a group context, different children could take turns leading the
group. This could benefit the self-esteem of all children and provide
them with a topic of conversation to share with family and
friends. Within an adult-child dyad, the members could simply