When Dr. Beth Reese’s then 6-year-old daughter, Jordan, started hurling chairs at her in a busy airport, she knew something was up. Soon after, she learned that her daughter had Sensory Processing Disorder, considered by many to be a spectrum disorder. Realizing that what Beth was learning on her yoga mat could help her daughter “off the mat,” she founded Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® in 2008. Since then she has authored award-winning, bilingual resources including MOSST (Mindful and OHMazing® Strategies for Students and teachers), an on demand mindfulness, movement, SEL, Spanish, neuroscience, and social justice curriculum for teachers, therapists, other professionals, parents, and families. She is an educational consultant and author, who leads trainings and professional development workshops for individuals, teachers, schools, and museums. Beth is the creator, producer and host of The OHMazing® Way podcast, bringing mindfulness and yoga on and off the mat to teachers, parents and families.
Learn more about Beth’s story on these podcasts where she was the guest: Dr. Beth Reese: Flower Power and the Dalai Lama on Exiting the ASAP Lane with Alan Steelman, and Yoga Off the Mat with Beth Reese of Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® on Mindful Living with Athea Davis.
One of the first practices Beth created for Jordan was Flower Power Breath: breathing in and imagining you are smelling a flower, then breathing out a slow audible ahhhhhh. Jordan found these life-skills, like “Flower Power Breath,” so helpful that she shared them with classmates. Jordan’s teachers became curious and invited Beth to school to share with the whole class, where they experienced fun, mindful games and tools to learn to be calm, focused, and relaxed. Watch a video showing Flower Power breath here.
Beth saw the ripple effect. Clear that there was something meaningful to create, she left her job as an art professor/university galleries director to follow her passion to build a program that would give kids, parents, and teachers OHMazing® tools for life. In 2008 she founded Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® and led her first Teacher Training soon after.
Jordan, now an award-winning filmmaker who graduated cum laude from the School of Theater, Film, and Television at UCLA, encourages her “Mindful Mā” to take her 25+ years in the education, art museum, yoga, business, and parenting worlds to expand Yogiños: Yoga for Youth® and The OHMazing® Way. Because Beth knows that when the home and classroom are calm and peaceful, success and love can grow to great heights, creating powerful futures for all.
More about Beth: A teacher with over 25 years of experience with preK-12 grades in art, windsurfing, skiing, and yoga, she is also a researcher and published writer. Having authored numerous chapters in academic texts along with a four-year weekly newspaper column, Beth has a PhD in art museum education and has taught art history, art museum education and museum studies at the University-level.
