Katie’s Tale
I have to tell you, marketing a children's book is ten times harder than writing one! And I'm not really a writer, I'm a kids' yoga teacher. So what do I know about marketing? I remember when my first mentor asked, "what's your why," and I thought "what?" She meant, why are you writing this kids yoga book? And I really stumbled around with my words for awhile and couldn't answer the question.
As we kept talking about it, I had a memory that had always stayed with me of this one particular little girl I had taught in elementary PE. This little girl was about 7yrs old, and her name was Katie. She was very sweet, a little chubby, and very unco-oordinated. She really struggled in PE. She would get all tangled up in the jump rope, she couldn't catch, throw, or dribble a ball, and she was terrified to do the arm hang bar. I felt so sad that she couldn't find success in the gym.
Then one day, I did a yoga lesson, just simple poses and stretches on the mats. Some of the kids, especially the boys, were having a difficult time with some of it, due to lack of flexibility. But I kept teaching, knowing that yoga is good for so many things (strength, flexibility, balance, self confidence and self regulation, to name a few.) When I got to the standing poses, and the warrior series, I noticed that Katie was smiling a little bit. I don't think I had ever seen her smile in PE class! I also noticed that she had perfect form on her warrior pose. I said to her, "Katie, have you ever done yoga before?" And she said, "no, but I like it!" She had finally found something she was good at in the gym.
And I realized I write kids yoga books so that kids like Katie can find some success a physical activity and feel good in their bodies. So they can have some self confidence that they are good at something. And that self confidence can carry over into other areas of their lives. That's my why!
I also realized that this could be the first story in a series of stories that I could tell about how yoga impacted children in the PE setting. I began to recall other kids, and how yoga helped them. So Yoga Tales from the Gym was born, and Katie's story, Everybody's Good at Something will be the first book!