How to Do Baby Swinging Yoga... Or Less Daring & More Cautious Normal Baby Yoga

What's a yoga master do when she gets pregnant and has a baby?  Teach it yoga, of course.  This brings a whole new meaning to beautiful bouncing baby.

[skip down for the actual baby yoga tutorials]

Lena Fokina believes yoga for babies can help children be better prepared for life, as well as become more flexible.  But this isn't yoga like you're thinking.  Her baby-swinging toga techniques seems more like tortuous, even torturous, training for future flying trapeze circus performers.

But really, your newborn could be likened to a piece of meat.  I'm picturing a sushi chef flipping a fish carcass over and over as he slices and dices.  I'm just wondering when the flambé part comes in.  Maybe that's what happens when parents teacher their toddlers the art of poi?  But maybe there's no comparison.  Maybe it's just me who thinks this.

Form your own opinion:

The baby yoga video below went viral when many viewers were convinced that Lena Fokina was using a fake child. New source claim that the child is real and Fokina is very serious about her technique.

Baby yoga users claim that it's uses are innumerable. Their children could reportedly learn to walk and swim earlier. That their babies were fearless. Although no studies have concluded that the baby-swinging harms or helps children.

'The child was born in the Black Sea region. Her name is Platona, and she was two weeks old when we took that video. We have a lot of children like her here. They are early readers, singers, talkers, swimmers. You haven't seen anything like it anywhere!! And there's swimming with dolphins, scuba diving with them,' Fokina explained. [via Terra]

But I'm not convinced that Fokina's version of baby yoga is as safe and useful as she claims.  After all, this is the same lady who does cat yoga.

Okay, that wasn't really Lena Fokina.  But it wouldn't surprise me if it were.

But if you think that baby yoga could be helpful for your child in the future, then you're probably right.  It doesn't look very complicated, if you want to go the swinging baby route.  No need for a tutorial on that.  You just need to browse the web to make sure you're not going to rip an arm off.  However, you may not be willing to go to the extremes that Fokina has.  Especially if you've got slippery fingers.

So, check out the below video tutorials on a different approach to baby yoga.  A safer version for the worrisome.  Do you really need to be one of those parents who drops their baby on its head?  Try explaining that one when they're all grown up.

Baby and Me Yoga

Getting Centered

Massage

Warmup and Tummy Time

Kegel Exercises

Sun Salutations

Tree Pose

Ball Exercises

Core Strengthening

Hip Openers

Twists

Cool Downs

Savasana

 [Image credit: Gawker]