MERIDIAN - For Zach Higgins, participating in yoga is not exclusively about exercise and being physically fit.

“It can help you with a lot of things in your life,” the 9-year-old from Weedsport said. “It can help you write an essay because you can relax; it can help you with dance because of the exercise, and it can help with anger because you are relaxing.”

Higgins attended yoga classes with his mom and dad a couple of times, he said, and discovered that he enjoyed it. Now he is taking a yoga class designed specifically for children, offered weekly by the Cato-Meridian Recreational Center and taught by registered yoga teacher Kathleen Frizzi.

On Tuesday, Higgins and Frizzi meditated, worked on deep breathing, practiced asanas - yoga postures - and focused on positive thinking during the session.

Laying on their stomachs, the duo slowly and deliberately lifted their arms and legs off yoga mats and into the air, using the strength of their cores to keep them balanced.

“How was that one,” Frizzi asked Higgins.

“Painful, but good,” he replied in kind.

Frizzi, who has taught yoga at the recreation center for five years, started the youth yoga program just this fall for children ages 8 and older after people from the recreation center and some members of the Cato-Meridian Central School District inquired about such a class, she said. While only two children currently partake in the classes, Frizzi believes more people will get involved as the program gets more publicity.

The practice that emanated from India focuses on breathing, rest and relaxation, qualities that children can use not just in class, but in life as well as inside the classroom, she said. They help children get through stressful times, like studying for and taking tests.

“Yoga helps apply these things to their lives,” she said. “It gives them that foundation as children.”

Mady Fabizio, Frizzi's niece and student in her youth yoga class, finds the practice helpful in those situations.

“It's like, relaxing, if you had a stressful day and everything, you can do some yoga, and it will calm you down,” the 9-year-old from Cato said.

But yoga too has benefits to children's health, Frizzi said.

“I think overall, that is why people in the school district have been asking about this,” she said. “Considering the obesity rates, the diabetes rates. ... this is one of the best things kids can do.”

She believes it positively impacts women, who in today's culture face mounting pressure to maintain a specific body image.

“I think that it's all part of leading them to a healthier lifestyle.”

Higgins' favorite part of yoga is savasana, roughly translated as the Corpse Pose, in which he would lay on the mat, on his back and relax his entire body and mind.

“It adds a little extra to the resting and relaxing and sometimes it adds to the positive thinking,” he said.

Before the session ended, Frizzi and Higgins said one final prayer and spent one last moment in a relaxed state. Sitting on a yoga block, they each placed their hands above their head, pushed them together and slowly dropped their clasped hands down to their hearts.

“Ohm...,” they said in unison, eyes closed, meditating for a minute. Then they opened their eyes and said, “Namaste.”

“Through yoga I learned that I can be a very peaceful person,” Higgins said, “relax and clear my mind.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net