Local yoga teacher wants kids to salute the sun their own way

Holding down a 9-to-5 job is just not in Laurel Kulow’s DNA.

Instead, the Weston resident teaches yoga, writes songs and screenplays, runs her own film production company and helps people organize their homes.

“I just don’t like a 9-to-5 job; it doesn’t suit me. I like to be spending my time doing something really intentional. I totally understand that people love the security of a 9-to-5 job and I respect that. To me it stresses me out. I like variety. It’s a little unconventional, but I like it,” she said.

Recently, she added author to her list of accomplishments, the result of which is “Look Up To The Sky,” a children’s guide through a yoga sun salutation.

A sun salutation is a series of poses done at the beginning of every yoga practice, Kulow said.

“It’s kind of a way to introduce kids to yoga and connecting with their bodies,” she said.

Kulow has been practicing yoga for more than 10 years. She became certified to teach in Nepal and has been teaching yoga classes for about a year, she said.

The idea for the book began to sprout while Kulow was teaching a kids’ yoga class. She started class each week with a breathing exercise and a sun salutation, teaching her students to wag their tail like a dog, or get down on their stomachs and slither like a snake.

Her students began to recognize the repetitions, often jumping in before she finished with the instructions.

“The kids started taking ownership of their own yoga practice,” Kulow said.

Wanting to extend that practice and unable to find a book for kids that taught them about yoga, she decided to write one of her own.

Each page features a different child and a differing location, and uses rhymes and pictures to teach individual poses, so even children who are not old enough to read can follow along. As children thumb through the pages, they are invited to look around – to perhaps a window, or the desert, or their freckled feet – and note what they see, before beginning the pose.

The lizard pose is one of Kulow’s favorites.

“’Step one foot back; so, I’m in a low lunge; and just like a lizard I stick out my tongue.’ So, it’s telling you how to do the pose from the previous pose and then it’s having you act out the animal you are pretending to be, so the kids can remember it more easily,” Kulow said.

A glossary at the end of the book describes each pose.

The reception for the book has been positive, she said.

“I used it in class … and the kids really liked it,” she said.

She has plans to do readings at local independent bookstores and her niece’s preschool.

“I think the book is really fun for kids … and it teaches them a lifelong skill. I wanted it to be an educational tool and something that is really fun for people to do,” Kulow said.

Kulow has no immediate plans to write a second book but says if she does it will probably be about yoga. For now, she plans to focus on her newly launched production company and creating female-driven comedies.

In between she will continue to teach yoga and help people organize their homes.

“I’m trying to build a life where I’m enjoying as many hours out of the day as I can and where I’m bringing other people joy,” she said. “Teaching yoga – my students always feel better after. They always are proud of themselves. When I’m helping someone organize, they feel happier in the spaces they live in. Through my music and some of my films I like to talk about personal and emotional things. I like to bring people joy in a variety of ways.”