The Magic in Music and Movement for Children and Adults

When I meet a new child, and want to catch his attention – like the little boy squirming on the window seat of my last airplane flight – I often begin with “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” This song has great hand and arm motions – both fine and gross motor, and these motions are automatically integrating. Itsy Bitsy Spider is a fantastic way to catch a child’s attention, and bring that attention into a centered and grounded place.

To explore why and how, let’s first look at the movements.

“The Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the water spout.” (Thumb and index finger climb up from the lap to chin, or higher)
“Down came the rain . . .” (Fingers fluttering, hands descend back toward the lap in two parallel lines)
“. . . and washed the spider out!” (Palms fly out to both sides)
“Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain” (Arms reach above the head in and and hands curve toward one another to form a circle – many sway here, with the rhythm of the song)
“And the itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.” (Arms quickly drop, and thumb and index finger make the initial climb once more).

Up-and-down movements like these help us feel centered and grounded. Why?
One reason is deep lies deep in the electro-magnetic circuits of the human body. Thousands of years ago, the Chinese mapped a system of energy flow that is continues to be used today in a variety of healing and educational applications. The Chinese mapped and named pathways – or meridians – they identified.

“The Central Vessel” begins below the pubic bone and runs up to the lower jaw. You don’t have to touch your body to activate it – your the electromagnetic field extends to the air surrounding your body. You can activate any meridian simply by moving your hand along its pathway in the air around you.

Movement along any meridian is like stroking a cat – there is definitely a way the electromagnetic “fur” likes to go! For the Central Vessel, this direction is up. To turn this meridian “on,” we can sweep our hands upward, a few inches away from our bodies, from our laps to our chins. Activating the Central Vessel makes us feel stronger – more energetic and alive, more centered and grounded.
Moving our hands downward, in the opposite direction, turns the meridian “off.” We release our energy, relax and droop.

Try it! Start by noticing your current energy level. One concrete way to do this is to think about a very small problem or annoyance, andto notice the extent to which it bugs you. You can quantify this benchmark with a number from 1 – 10.

For instance, as I’m sitting here writing, I know that soon I need to get in the car and drive a longish distance, and I really am not feeling “up” for that. I’d put my resistance at about a “5.”

Sweep your hand up from your lap to your chin. Do this energetically a few times. “Stroking the cat” in this direction can make it purr.
I just did this. Now my resistance has gone down to a “3.” And I’ve just found myself yawning and stretching, and now it’s gone down to a “1.” And now, just in the time it took to write the last sentence, the resistance I originally felt is totally gone. It’s hard even to think about driving – I’m just not interested. The idea no longer has any power over my emotions.

Sometimes we feel over-energized, hyperactive. Then it may be time to stroke the cat in the downward direction, breaking down the jitters. Notice how your body feels, and then stroke the air down, from chin to lap, a few times. Do your shoulders start to droop a bit, and do you begin to feel a little “logy?” Time to get the energy back – sweep up from lap to chin again a few times! This new energy feels cleaner and clearer. It doesn’t carry all of the old “program” that was making us a little jittery a few moments ago.

We don’t even have to touch the cat to activate this energy. The eyes are the joy stick of the brain – every time we look in a direction, we activate information that moves across the brain in the opposite direction. Simply moving our eyes up and down has a centering effect – we are “stroking the cat” internally.

Are you starting to understand the power of “Itsy Bitsy Spider?”

Catch the child’s attention with the tune and the interesting position of your hands. As your thumbs and index fingers crawl up from your lap to your chin, their internal “cat” starts getting stroked in the right direction. Then, the rain falls down, and washes away their old energy. And once the sun comes out, the itsy bitsy spider crawls UP the spout again.

Itsy Bitsy Spider is magic! The movements of the song are perfect for centering and grounding a child. The hands go up, energizing the child’s system. They go down, releasing the old energy. And as they go up again, the child feels both more energized and more peaceful.

On the airplane the other day, the little boy was getting restless, and the cabin pressure was changing, and his mother was occupied with the baby who had just awakened. Itsy Bitsy Spider kept us going for a good ten minutes. He beamed and wriggled and moved his little hands, and his shiny eyes kept returning to mine.
We can do the game as many times as we like, but we always end with an upward movement. We need to put ourselves back together, so we can go on to our next activity.

As for me, I need to get up and drive.

This article is reposted from “Getting Centered: The Itsy Bitsy Spider” blog by Eve Kodiak, 07/02/11

“What a Wonderful World”

Sunday I celebrated another birthday. Celebrated it in a big way. I celebrated it in Zurich, Switzerland, in a beautiful, historic setting, the Sonne Hotel, built in 1641. As I sat in the elegant dining room having breakfast with my husband and two daughters I wondered what other special occasions had also been celebrated in that very same room. I felt as if it was a day for me to reflect on the stage of life I’m at now and how much more there is still to be done. The dining room in the hotel was elegantly decorated, the ceiling was painted in the style of Michelangelo, indeed, the hotel had many original paintings hanging throughout ranging from 17th century artists to Andy Warhol. The saying goes, “if only walls could talk…” If so, I hope the walls heard what all we were talking about as we shared our love for each other and the opportunity to be together, not just via Skype, but face to face.

So what do the Roemers talk about when we get together? Kristen, our youngest, tells about her new experiences living in a country with different customs, different foods, different culture, one filled with new friends and a community she has enjoyed becoming assimilated into. She is having an exciting school year teaching elementary music to children in Dubai. She recounts the holiday concerts, sharing how much fun it was to have all the parents up on their feet participating in folk dances at the end of each concert (just a few days ago). She brings me up to speed on the new Orff ensemble she created for the students to perform, based on a popular children’s storybook. She describes funny stories of her little K-5 students a world away from the ones she had taught the last 6 years in Plano, Texas. Jennifer, our oldest daughter, spoke of her joy in seeing great strides and gains from her private piano students. Her holiday concert took place a week ago and she could hardly contain her pride and joy while giving us a complete review of how so many students had excelled and practiced so diligently, making their parents so proud. She spoke of her love for them and for their precious families. If our son had been there he would have taken his share of time to tell about the youth in his student ministries group and the anecdotes he tells so well would have brought laughter and a few tears, too. We know how much of himself he puts into teaching and directing his youth group. Volunteering at his children’s school, putting together video projects, always reaching out to help whether it’s convenient or not. Always being counted on to follow through and to be aware of those in his area that can use a little extra help. What greater joy can a parent have than to know that their children have grown into caring adults who think more about others than about their own selves?

We spent the first few years teaching our children to walk, to talk, then how to get along well with others, how to share, and along each step we made sure we were impressing upon them the urgency to reach out to others that need our help and to do our part to make the world a better place. Whether it would be as simple as striking up a conversation with a fellow human being we don’t even know, but one we sense is lonely and in need of a kind word, or by using a smile to light up the face of a stranger who doesn’t even speak the same language we speak. It seems they have learned the lesson well as they are all three involved in career choices that aren’t especially gratifying in terms of dollars, but consist of the enduring work of teaching and training children, spreading love and joy.

So, in a way, at this point I can sit back and hear the stories my three children tell of their daily lives as they are all involved in serving others, and feel that maybe my job is done. Until I realize I now have grandchildren and I must use the same approach to pass it along to the next generation. I must tell them stories of how Gram, their great-grandmother, accomplished such incredible things with her own life as she came from the rural hills of Kentucky to start a business and make a better life for herself and her children. I must spend hours weaving stories in an interesting way to tell them of how I’ve watched her give of herself, her time, her money, and share with those less fortunate she came into contact with. I can remember at age 5 years giving up my beautiful purple bedroom with the white canopy bed for several weeks so an elderly man, Mr. Richmond, could stay with us. He didn’t have adult children in the area to help take care of him as he became more feeble. I’m ashamed to say I somewhat resented the years when I was around age 6 – 9, and I had to give up my seat in the car to squeeze to the middle as we picked up Granny Ross and took her back and forth to church with us each service, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Sunday morning and Sunday night (lots of church, lots of time I would have loved just snuggling into the corner of the back seat and having my family all to myself!). She complained and fussed, never seemed grateful, but my folks insisted that our kindness to others wasn’t contingent upon whether or not they seemed to appreciate it and show any gratitude. Through the years we had people living in our home sometimes just for a couple of weeks, long enough to get back on their feet, or sometimes for a couple of years. Some were relatives, but many of them were just folks my parents had heard of who needed a little extra help. You would think my parents were wealthy from the way they gave to others, but they were only wealthy in their love and care for their fellow man, not in terms of financial measures. I recall there were a few years that we seemed to be an extension of the military base at Ft. Knox, 45 minutes away from our home in Louisville. My parents befriended a young man, Jim, who was stationed at Ft. Knox and he ended up bringing lots of his soldier friends in and out of our home so they could eat dinner with us, hang out in our home and be a part of our family. It was a different world, in the 1960s and there was a lot of trust, opening up our home and our family to so many we didn’t even know much about. When I got married and moved out my parents took in a teenage girl and gave her a place to live, my mom gave her a job in her business and taught her skills that she no doubt uses to this very day. After two or three years of practically being a member of our family she left for college and got married, moved out of state. If I took the time to make a list, I bet there would be dozens of names on it that my folks helped get back on their feet or sheltered for a long enough period of time that they could finally take care of themselves. I recall the old lady who came to our church, lived below the poverty level, and had a horrible odor that I could barely stand to be around when I was about 9 years old. My mom went to the lady’s house and cleaned it top to bottom, gave the lady a bath and washed her hair, several times, until she passed away. There was nothing in it for my mother (certainly no inheritance to cash in on!) other than her own feelings that she was helping someone who others shunned and someone was going to have a better quality of life because my mom cared. I hope my own children some day look back on their lives and remember that I, too, did more giving than taking. I hope the Kindermusik families I serve feel better when they leave my classroom each week than when they entered it. I hope I can brighten their lives, use a song and a smile to encourage them whether they are carrying a heavy burden or riding the crest of a wave of success. That’s the heritage I want to pass along to my children and grandchildren. I hope my children continue to carry on their important work helping others and I hope my grandchildren pick up the torch and carry it for the future.

Yes, the memories always flood back during this time of year. My birthday, December 26, is always a time for me to reflect and take the time to think of where I have been, where I am now, and where I’m going next. During the last few hours the Louis Armstrong song has been playing over and over inside my head, “I say to myself, what a wonderful world!”

Music and Movement – The Kindermusik Way

Music and movement: magical ingredients to learning   

Music and movement are magical ingredients to learning for both the child and parent. A baby’s first communication is through movement. A toddler immediately responds to lively music with silly gyrations and flailing limbs – and while these movements usually make us giggle, to him they are serious attempts to coordinate movement with rhythmic patterns. The preschooler seems to be constantly moving – leaping off couches, rolling down hills, and spinning around and around until she falls down in a giggling flop on the floor.

Movement is fundamental for the development of the central nervous system, and science proves it. But what’s more, movement and rhythm are also essential for the development of the soul. These are things that can’t be measured with research and studies.

When a parent moves with her infant, a special bonding takes place that is key to social and emotional growth. When a parent sings to her child, not only are language skills being developed, but also a sense of love, comfort and harmony. The special touching, laughing, and rhythmic moving that takes place in a music and movement class lays a very strong and much needed foundation for a happy, healthy and joyful life!

Here are just a few of the ways that Kindermusik children learn through the interactive music and movement activities of the Kindermusik classroom:

• Intentional touch is designed to provide stimulation of the nervous system, relaxation and bonding.
• Activities involve unilateral, bi-lateral and cross-lateral movements that help develop the brain and muscles.
• Movement and dance steps allow the caregiver and child to experience different rhythms and locomotor movements.
• Synchronized dances develop sequencing, provide reassuring repetition and social interaction.
• Expressive movement provides variety, creativity, and opposing feelings such as fast and slow, high and low.
• Rocking and swinging stimulate the vestibular system, which is so important to balance and even eye movement.
• Props, such as the “humongous” scarves and parachutes, provide tactile and visual stimulation.

So put on your Kindermusik CD at home and don’t worry about performing the dances “just right.” Don’t even worry about right and left! Simply move to the music and have fun! It all makes a difference.

-This post was adapted from a past issue of Kindermusik Notes and was originally written by Anne Green Gilbert, Director of the Creative Dance Center and Kaleidoscope Dance Company in Seattle, Washington, and a consultant for Kindermusik International.

Another Year of Kindermusik – Classes begin 9/13/10

You would think after 15 years of teaching Kindermusik classes I wouldn’t get butterflies in my stomach, wouldn’t dance around with a happy song in my heart, and wouldn’t stay awake wondering if I really have everything ready for a perfect experience when my precious children come to their first class of the academic year. Not so! I’m giddy with excitement and each September still feels like the first September, fifteen years ago, when I stayed up all night long going over and over every detail of the two little classes I was going to be teaching for the first time on a Tuesday morning in Louisville, KY. I had the songs memorized backwards and forwards but I still kept checking myself to make sure my key placement was 100% accurate, that my words were absolutely the same as on the recording I had listened to and in the music notation.  I had even scripted out such mundane aspects as my welcome upon meeting the parents and children for the first time, face-to-face. “Hello, Miriam, it’s so nice to finally get to meet you and little Edgar, I have been counting the days leading up to this very moment!” Then I had planned to nod my head two times, look the client/mom in the eye, shake her hand and ask her to remove her shoes, and those of Edgar, before joining us in being seated on the floor, in the circle. Of course none of that actually happened the way I had scripted, but the preparations allowed me to be spontaneous and joyful, knowing I had a backup plan in case the moment called for it.

Fast forward fifteen years, no longer in my beloved Kentucky, but teaching Kindermusik in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas. Again, it feels mostly like parturition, as I am preparing this year to welcome not just a total of 8 students in two classes on a Tuesday morning, but most likely somewhere in the total number of around 500 students, at 17 locations, joined by an exceptional staff of 13 licensed Kindermusik educators who are more than employees, they are my friends. Would I have ever thought life would take me in this direction (both geographically and figuratively)? No. This is a long way from teaching private piano students for 25 years in Louisville, then realizing I was born for the purpose of bringing music to young children through Kindermusik, and making it my life’s work. This is a long way from raising my own three children, taking them to music lessons, devoting just about every waking moment to their education and trying to make sure they had the right ingredients for success. It’s a long way from my family and friends in my native Kentucky, those same folks that I was sure I would never be able to find in Texas (really? Miss Jeanie?) Um-hmmm, I was pretty sure I’d never again have close friends and I’d be lonely, bored, and my work would come to an end upon moving to Texas, nothing even remotely close to the actuality of having so many “best friends” that I can’t even schedule enough lunches on the days I have available to meet with them all!

So, as I anticipate the best Kindermusik year ever (and that’s saying a lot because each year has been better and better up to this point!) I can’t help but take a moment and give thanks for this wonderful opportunity of a lifetime to make a difference in the world. If I can really leave my footprint, through children growing up to love music and love each other, making the world a more peaceful and harmonious place, then I will have accomplished what I was put on this earth to do. Now I just need to do a couple of final checks in preparation for Monday morning 9:30 am when the “Our Time – Milk & Cookies” songs fill the air and children start on a path to living a better life with every possible advantage. I have to make sure the rug in the room is straight, the iPod speakers are pointing in the right direction, and that my own heart is straight and ready to give more than I get. Sing, dance, play, learn, grow, Kindermusik is truly “a good beginning that never ends!”

Memorial Day 2010

First post on blog, first step on a journey… here we go!

Memorial Day 2010

My earliest memories of Memorial Day all involve cemetaries.  Maybe you had to grow up in Kentucky to understand, but ancestors, graves, funerals, “those that have gone on” were the symmetrical intertwining of life and death.  Nobody hid death from children, it was simply part of life.  We grieved.  Oh, yes.  Even today, if you need someone to really carry on at a funeral send me a text and I’ll be there.  You’ll see grieving like you’ve probably never seen before!  Maybe they should have hidden death from me and I wouldn’t have known so much about how to do it so well.  So, my folks spent Memorial Day driving down to the cemetary in the hills of Kentucky where our departed family members were all buried.  Wreaths were purchased to place on the grave sites, lots of memories were brought up and talked about extensively, and it was truly a day of memory for the good times and bad of those we loved.

After Mark and I were married and had our own family our Memorial Day holidays were spent at church picnics.  Our church, in Kentucky, had an annual Memorial Day Picnic to start the summer season of activities.  I’ll never forget the year I decided all of my little 5-member family needed to wear matching Mickey Mouse tee shirts (how did I ever get my husband to go along with this?), or the year that we looked across the park and noticed 4-year old Nathanael riding a bike without training wheels.  Nobody taught him how, nobody helped, he just saw an older child’s bike lying on the ground and he jumped on and started riding it.  I’ll never forget the decades that I was seemingly compelled to take a 9″ x 13″ pan of my “Indoor S’mores” recipe for my dessert, one that had been copied off the back of a graham cracker cereal box, and somehow seemed the appropriate pot-luck choice for the Roemers to take to the church picnic (for recipe click HERE Indoor Smores).  

What will your family remember about Memorial Day?  When your children are grown up, 50 years from now, will they remember the family tradition of inviting friends over for a backyard barbeque, going on picnics to a park, running a marathon, serving the poor and underprivileged on Memorial Day each year, or other unique events?  Whether intentional or not, you’ll be creating memories for your children this year.  Make Memorial Day count. 

Oh, and one more thing to think of on Memorial Day… Don’t forget we start our Kindermusik Summer Program the day after Memorial Day!  If you haven’t signed up yet do it now.  Click www.SmartStartMusic.com to register now.  Create the summer memories for 2010 to last a lifetime!  Kindermusik, as always, the BEST CHOICE, according to 99% of families surveyed.

Make a Memorial Day memory, make a summer 2010 memory, make a beautiful life.

Musically,

Miss Jeanie