7: A Rubber Ducky & Cell Phone Alarm - Creative Ways to Build Resilience in Youth and Teens with Victoria Otto
If you are searching for creative ways to introduce resilience strategies to your students, athletes, musician and own kids and teens, you will find a multitude of practical advice in this month’s podcast from a former IL Secondary PE Teacher of the Year and creator of the Yoga for PE YouTube Channel, Victoria Otto.
Victoria Otto was selected as both an IL Secondary PE Teacher of the Year as well as a Midwest District Secondary PE Teacher of the year. She teaches Physical Education and Health at Highland Park High School where she creates a classroom for students to focus on developing conscious living skills. Victoria has a BS in Physical Education/Exercise Science from University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and an MS in Health Education from Pennsylvania State University. She is a certified personal trainer, group fitness instructor, yoga instructor and has an excellent YouTube channel called Yoga for PE by Victoria Otto.
https://www.youtube.com/@yogaforpebyvictoriaotto1054/videos
EMAIL: YOGAFORPE@GMAIL.COM
TWITTER: @YOGAFORPE
INSTAGRAM: @LittleMsFun2014
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Episode Transcript
Tom: [00:00:00] Our question for this month actually comes from both teachers and parents. I've gotten a version of this question from many people over the weeks and months that we've had this podcast and question kind of goes something like, you know, when I'm teaching mindfulness, whether it's to kids in my class to my own kids, sometimes there's students or my own kids just won't sit still.
And what's the best thing to do with these types of students? So to answer this question, I am thrilled that we have Victoria Otto here with us.
She was actually selected as both an Illinois secondary PE teacher of the year, as well as the, , Midwest district secondary . P. E. Teacher of the year. She teaches physical education and health at Highland Park High School, where she creates a classroom for students to focus on developing conscious living skills and offers a yoga and meditation elective class, which is pretty interesting.
Uh, Victoria has a BS in physical education, exercise science from the university of Wisconsin at lacrosse and an MS in health education from Pennsylvania [00:01:00] state university. She's a certified personal trainer, group fitness instructor, yoga instructor and has An excellent YouTube channel, called yoga for PE by Victoria Otto. Jeannie, I actually first met Victoria Otto at a PE and health teacher conference that I went to. , I got there early because I knew I wanted to see it just from looking at the description and people just coming in and in and in, and they were like literally outside the door in the hallway
Jeannie: Oh, cool.
Tom: And what I loved about her and why, as soon as we started this podcast, I thought, okay, this is somebody I definitely want to get on the podcast because she really kind of combines what I think are the three key things with this stuff. One. Practical activities that you can actually take and apply, um, a real good kind of understanding of the science too, behind it, of why it works.
And she does a great job of explaining that to kids and to adults as well. And then as you'll see an incredible enthusiasm for teaching it, just extraordinary enthusiasm for teaching it. So Victoria, [00:02:00] so much for
Victoria: for having me. I'm so excited to share
Tom: Um, let's kick kick it off them with that question. What do you think? Any thoughts on that as far as those kids who just won't sit still that are in our classes or our own kids?
Victoria: , the answer is multiple answers based on your setting and who you're dealing with, the age, you know, all this kind of stuff. So I'm going to try to answer it the best I can. And the first is just let them,
Jeannie: Yeah.
Victoria: there wiggling, let them wiggle.
Jeannie: Yeah.
Victoria: , because what you're doing is you're creating that space for them to start to learn, to settle.
We as adults forget we're kind of domesticated. As we teach your children to socialize, we, as adults, if we got to sit down and meditate, we're going to sit down and we're going to be like right here, um, where we're kids, they're, they're not domesticated fully yet. You're a parent, you know what I'm talking about and they're moving around and they're shaking and they're. And that's actually kind of what they're supposed to be doing especially in a [00:03:00] school setting where the kids, we kind of have it kind of backwards, the kids should not be sitting that that's not good for our brain functioning, I teach juniors and seniors, so they're sitting for eight periods a day other than my period.
And so. we're not actually made to do that. So when they do come into your P. E. Class, they should wiggle and move a little bit. My experiences come from teaching a full year curriculum of yoga and meditation. I see my kids four days a week, so I get to practice almost every day with my students. And consistency is part of the settling down. Every day we just tune in and tune out. So it's three breaths in. And then when we tune out, we give an intention to ourselves. We give an intention to someone else, like forgiveness, understanding, compassion, then the last one is, you know, set an intention for
some place in the world, some group of people that need a little extra TLC. So beginning the class with just three breaths and then ending the class with that, you are starting to set the foundation [00:04:00] for that quiet time what happens is Like at least 50 percent of the class is bought in right away.
And within a week I will have 75 bought in I would say by the end of the quarter, every single kid is bought in. Because they're sitting on their mat and they're tuning out position and at first they'll look around and their little eyes will be open and then they'll shut them.
They're kind of, you know, they're looking side to side and they're noticing that the buddies are all tuned in.. And so they like, and so they give in to the process and that that comes from consistent practice. On occasion, I do have some kids that will struggle a little bit more.
They might have some emotional traumas that are, that are going on, or they might be special needs so I have a few tricks. So my first trick, uh, working on the breath is the almighty me. Rubber ducky.
Jeannie: Oh.
Tom: Ha
Victoria: So now you brought in some silliness, some fun, a little bit of that inner child's coming in and who doesn't like a rubber ducky?
I'll have the kids lay down first and I'll put it right [00:05:00] in their stomach and they get to do that. And they just practice becoming connecting the breath. with their body. So the rubber ducky goes up
Jeannie: Oh
Victoria: the rubber ducky goes down and
Jeannie: sure.
Tom: Yup. Yup. Yeah. Ha
Victoria: and exhale. And so they, they can connect that and, um, and become very conscious of that.
It brings the connection to the breath and their body. And it kind of takes a little bit of the self consciousness out of it, another one that works really well is these Hoberman balls. I use them all the time with my special needs kids because it's in there right in front of them. And they can watch it. So you breathe in and exhale
Tom: Nice.
So there's something that they're physically looking at because some people do have a problem with closing their eyes.
Victoria: And this just gives them something really to can make those connections back and forth and follow along with that, the rhythm. My [00:06:00] ultimate goal would be, they have big hoberman balls that are like this big. They, they cost so much money. I would love to get the whole class to work on a breath breathing in and exhale as a class. But
Tom: good. That's good.
Victoria: I haven't done that one yet. So anyway, um,
Tom: seen some, I've seen some, uh, PE teachers do it with like a parachute where the, hey, everybody breathe in and
Victoria: Breathe in, exhale out. Yeah.
Tom: another way to do it.
Victoria: Yeah.
Tom: The next step in, being still. And so I start with only three minutes of breath work. And I start with the long, deep breath, the breath of fire and alternate nostril breathing.
They're like the, the Swiss army knives of breath. so if you're introducing your child to those breath patterns, that, um, that's going to set them up for all the other forms of breath work and meditation. Long deep breath is, you know, probably it is the ultimate foundation,
Victoria, if you could just explain it. So basically just breathe in for us. Inhale for as long as you can.
Victoria: and exhale.
Tom: [00:07:00] Okay.
Victoria: And when I'm teaching it, I will always count it out. Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4. Exhale 4, 3, 2, 1.
Tom: So you're doing four seconds. Would you recommend if, if you know, you're doing juniors and seniors, if, if you know, parents or teachers are teaching little or kids, would it still be four seconds you recommend or is it shorter?
Victoria: well, see, I go, I, I start at four seconds.
Tom: four seconds? Okay.
Victoria: so like the first minute or two, and I'll just kind of monitor and see, um. So let's back up for one second. Minutes do matter. So three minutes, seven minutes, 11 minutes, 22 minutes, 31 minutes, uh, two and a half hours. That's actually where they start to see a shift under the functional MRIs.
So it's not that you're not doing anything. If you take a one minute breath, it's just kind of scratching at the door. It's like tap, tap, tap, you know, where the shift actually starts. So I'll always do a three minute. Start and I, and I might, I'll, I'll count up [00:08:00] to do the four count for at least the first minute, especially the first time I'm doing it and I'll just watch and as I see them sink in, because if you've done this before, , there is a shift and it is visible that you can see it and then I'll push the six and then if I can get them to eight, like, like right now, all my students can get to eight.
But in the beginning they can't. . I always make sure the first four to six times I do a meditation session I will have every student speak or verbalize something. Uh, one that gets the whole class to participate.
But two, I emphasize that there's no wrong experience because everybody who's having an experience right now, you will have that experience at some point in time. And so we want to learn and listen.
And through that process, the self consciousness starts to. decrease. Then when I heard from everyone, I'll be like, okay, who had a hard time shifting from four count to six count? And you'll have a number of people raise their hand. And that, and that usually means that regardless of what your mind thinks, [00:09:00] you are physiologically in the fight or flight.
Your sympathetic nervous system is activated because you can't shift. Now, if you shifted, you know, it might've taken you one or two, um, breathworks, but then you shifted, you were starting to sink more into the parasympathetic and, uh, releasing the sympathetic. When we talk in like the Buddhist monks and the people that are really like on this, they take one minute breath, one cycle in one minute. Right. And they do that all the time.
Jeannie: oh my gosh!
Victoria: And that shifts. The whole body chemistry with what's going on. They're really in, into the empathetic centers of the brain.
So we can't even comprehend how they can see compassion and some of the most horrendous events that we see, like on the news and stuff like that. Because their brain is actually wired differently and on a whole different dimension or existence or plane or [00:10:00] whatever word you want to use for it.
And that's, that's the goal is, , we want to be able to find that level of peace or contentment, , as life comes at us so that we can make the best possible choices for ourselves
Tom: Victoria, this class, so it's an elective class and you said it's a full year, the yoga and meditation class?
Victoria: Yeah, how my school is set up. Illinois requires four years of physical education with health and drivers that mixed in there. Some schools do get a lot of waivers to move around that, which to me is not really practicing social emotional learning or looking at the whole child.
We know conclusively that we need to move there's so much evidence out there that if your child isn't moving, , you're not setting their brain up to learn to be that little sponge that they are. So even if they are a little sponge, you're like, well, my kid's a little sponge.
Could you imagine how much more spongier they would be if they moved more? We forget that these are still children, and there's a certain [00:11:00] level of free play, , that needs to happen.
And when we take that out, which is what we are seeing now, a lot of the problems we're having with the depression, the anxiety, and all of the other mental, , issues can be directly correlated to us not allowing our children to have unstructured free play. And the research, um, Dr. Peter Gray out of Boston is huge on this.
, there's actually a couple of websites. You can go on free range kids is one of them where, where you can go and, , see some techniques that can help you implement some of these things
we've created this society of safety ism and we're overly protecting the kids, which ends up crippling the kids because they can't develop their sense of autonomy.
So we gotta, we gotta let kids play. We've got to let them fall down. We've got to let them get hurt.
We don't want our children in pain, but that's also how they learn.
Tom: And I've heard the term, you know, I used to hear helicopter [00:12:00] parent. I've actually heard snowplow parents nowadays is that they're plowing every, you know, problem or issue or challenge there. If, if, if they're trying to kind of push it away so the kids don't have to handle it, but that's part, you gotta have that.
Jeannie: Yeah. Yeah.
Tom: grow. Yeah.
Victoria: so what the universities are now, they're having, uh, an emotionally less mature student coming into college. So that's where they're struggling is because they are not ready to be. Independent
One of the questions I get from my kids because they're juniors and seniors is like, what do I need to know for college?
What you need to learn to do is how do you do your laundry? Do you know the difference between the washer and the dryer?
Jeannie: Mm hmm.
Victoria: do you know what? Windex and Comet are for and if you're an organic baking soda and vinegar and water Because you need to learn how to clean things because there's not someone gonna be there to clean
Tom: yeah,
Jeannie: Yep.
Victoria: conscious of your bathroom habits?
These are the things you need to [00:13:00] be conscious of when you're living with people outside of your family group, and you should be conscious of them with your family too, but right, but in family, we give that grace.
You know, learn how to cook your comfort meal that your mom cooks in the microwave. Cause that's what you're going to have practice with your parents now.
Tom: The talk about these challenges, things reminds me of something we talked about when we were first discussing prior to hit record on the podcast. We talked about earlier is the lobster story.
Victoria: Oh, I
Tom: you explain that? Yes, I love this. So I think this is a great one. I definitely want people to hear
Victoria: Yeah, so you, and you can, you, there's a lot of YouTube versions of it. So I might miss it and miss, you know, a few, uh, little points to it, but you know, lobsters, they cruise around on the bottom of the ocean. They're great. They clean up the ocean for us, but they have this exoskeleton. And so they can only grow so far.
And then life gets uncomfortable for them. And they've got to make a decision, am I going to go crawl in a hole so that the sharks don't eat me, , or am [00:14:00] I going to die here and basically suffocate within this exo, exoskeleton?
So of course, you know, any normal lobster will go in the hole and what they'll do is, you know, release their, their exoskeleton, grow another one. And during that process, they're in the darkness. And this is a place where we have gotten really afraid of in our culture. Like don't go in the darkness, don't go in the pain.
, and that's where the safety culture comes from, both physically and emotionally. So in the darkness is where true growth comes from. And then they come out, you know, with the new exoskeleton and they're all like, you know, woohoo. The the key thing is is life is uncomfortable sometimes and we have to Learn to handle being uncomfortable and then the uncomfortable no longer is uncomfortable anymore.
And so, you know, be a lobster
Tom: excellent. Um, can you tell us about your YouTube channel? any, uh, suggestions on favorite videos you think people should
check out? Cause I've enjoyed [00:15:00] it.
Victoria: Thank you. I have actually not put a lot more on there because I'm going to be retiring in May , it started because of COVID and people needed things to do. So I put, put a bunch of stuff out there. And when I retire, I really want to focus again on creating that YouTube site and getting things more accessible for everyone to use.
I have long, deep breath and . Alternate nostril breathing on there.
Tom: Do you mind maybe walking us through one or two techniques
Victoria: Why don't we try, . Alternate nostril breathing since I know everybody can do long, deep breath so, so, um, with I always like to tune in. So we just kind of set in the stage. Basically, it's like letting her bot like doing a free throw. You know, you're just letting our body know what we're doing. So, um, you can tune in with your hands in Gyan Mudra, or which is interspersing the thumb together, hands in the lap, or bring them up into prayer position.
You choose what works for you and wherever you're at. Take a nice, long, deep breath [00:16:00] in. And exhale. Take a nice, long, deep breath in. And exhale. And one more time. Nice, long, deep breath in. And exhale. And doing that alternate nostril breathing. Your left hand is going to be index finger and thumb are going to come together. And this is the symbol of knowledge and wisdom. And your thumb is the symbol of your ego. So what you're doing is pushing your ego aside. So the knowledge and wisdom can come through.
That hand is just going to hang out right there. Your thumb is going to go start on the right side, and it's always this right hand, and you're going to find that nice little spot there where, uh, where your, uh, your nose , decreases, and you're just going to gently cut off the flow of air there, and you're going to breathe in through the left, [00:17:00] exhale, and one more inhale, you're going to suspend the breath, and you're going to rotate that hand right across your face, and you're going to use either the pinky or ring finger, they're both correct, exhale, exhale. Inhale. Suspend the breath. Rotate to the thumb. Exhale. Inhale. Suspend the breath. Rotate and exhale. Inhale. Suspend the breath. Rotate and exhale. Lower your right hand down. Inhale. Blow through an open mouth. Nice and hard. Two more times. Breathing in. And exhale. [00:18:00] And last time. Breathing in. And exhale. And open those eyes whenever you're ready. Yeah, so you're already shifting and, and, and take a mental note of what, like we can even say, what did that feel like to you?
Jeannie: I almost, I feel like I can breathe better. Like I feel like, like just those, those final three breaths for me, I felt them deeper. Like I felt like I could, I don't know, very calm.
Victoria: Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. And I feel also a lot lighter, just a nice little, little break at the end of the day. And that was just only, you know, one minute of us doing that. , The interesting thing about alternate nostril breathing is the alternate nostril breathing starts to balance the hemispheres of the brain.
, I always say, if your mind is feeling a little scrambled eggy, uh, [00:19:00] you know, you're going here, there, which is often what we're doing in our society, um, multitasking. And our brain actually can't do that. Sorry, people. I know you might think you can, but your brain really can't.
Tom: Yeah.
Victoria: And that means you're physiologically stressed out. So this is one of those where it can bring some coherence to the brain.
Tom: Thank you. Victoria. Thank you for sharing those.
Victoria: You're welcome. Thank you
Tom: We like to end every podcast with kind of three questions that we ask every guest. The first one is kind of something we talked about earlier is that, Hey, everybody's going to go through anxiety and stress.
It's inevitable. It's going to happen. Can you give us an example of maybe something that either causes or caused you stress and then what you did,
Victoria: yeah, well, I'm actually using a lot of the techniques right now, because as I'm retiring, um, so we do the same job for 20 some years and all of a sudden you're done.
Jeannie: Right?
Tom: [00:20:00] Ah,
Victoria: then I'm, I'm actually moving out of the state of Illinois and I'm going to Africa.
Tom: wow.
Victoria: Like three, three huge things.
right. Um, right. And when you're moving. You like I'm looking around my house and going, Oh my goodness, I've been here for a long time. And then I'm looking at my classroom. It's like, Oh my goodness, I've been here for a long time. So how I, you know, how do you put this all together and so it's all the techniques that I've used my whole life preparing for this, this movement . Every day, I, , I keep it simple. I get up and I meditate. And I get, and I do some, um, my cardio exercise because I like that
it's finding these small things throughout the day that are part of your self care, but also that, that help your body and your mind. You know, stay in that relaxed state. So this way I can make good choices for those kinds of things.
And it's and it's taking those [00:21:00] what I call magic moments And i'm just stopping for a moment right where you're at and what am I grateful for right here?
You can set an alarm on your phone, like your gratitude alarm. And you just set that alarm and as soon as it goes off, you've got the little gratitude message going across. What am I grateful for right now?
, what happens is you learn to go to gratitude, which has been shown scientifically to also enhance the compassion centers and empathy centers of the brain. Just the thought of gratitude shifts your mindset, even if it's just for a nanosecond, then that mindset shifts. And it's the repetition of that shifting.
And that creates those, these little victories
Tom: excellent. That's great.
Second question then that we have for you is we like to remind kids that, you know, failure is. Is inevitable and if you're going to, you know, achieve your potential sooner or later, you're going to fail. Can you share with us maybe a failure that you had in the past and what you learned from it, what you took away from [00:22:00] it?
Victoria: So for, for me, I had to kind of think about this because even as a child, I never really failed, even though I fall flat on my face numerous times, especially as a gymnast, literally, but, um, I I figured out somewhere along the line that I did not read as fast as everybody else, that when the teacher would say, turn to page 254, I was in barely at 245.
And I, I started picking this up all on my own. I just knew that I was not as smart as the other kids. And I became very sensitive to someone calling me stupid or, or, you know, those kinds of things.
And, um, and anyone that's listening, we were in generation X. You got called all sorts of things right to your
Tom: yeah alright,
Victoria: needed to handle that.
Tom: Yeah.
Victoria: Not that, and I, and I thank those people because of. The strength that I was able to cultivate myself. So because I didn't want to be called those things, I learned to study, [00:23:00] I learned study habits, and I learned, I knew anything that I needed to read
if this was the due date, I had that done two weeks ahead of time to make sure I understood because I was such a slow reader. I had learned to be a site reader. I could not do phonics and I still can't do this to this day, . So, um, I finally just got comfortable with that. And when I started teaching you, you still wrote on the board.
Jeannie: Yeah. Sure.
Victoria: I was teaching Helden. I'd be like, okay, I can't spell you guys. I'm going to admit it can't spell. So if I'm spelling something wrong, you don't get to make fun of me.
You get to teach me. How to spell that word. And so as I went through, and then eventually I just said, well, I'm just dyslexic, What happened is the kids that were dyslexic are like, Oh my God. I'm so glad you told me that because now I have somebody who's successful in front of me.
And, and, and just watching you just go like whatever.
Jeannie: Yeah.
Yeah.
Victoria: that is, um, you know, I don't want to say a story of failure, but like where I. I
Jeannie: That's
Tom: Right. Yeah. [00:24:00] That's a wonderful example.
All right, the last question that we've got for you is, you know, if parents got just a couple of minutes, they want to share something with their child or teacher coach has a few minutes left to practice or a class.
What would your main message be? Kind of your parting words to them.
Victoria: uh, is to take, take a time out. really evaluate what is important. we need to allow space for play and maybe as a parent, I have to work on that myself, but if you allow the kids, they, they will sort it out and sometimes they might be like, I'm bored, great. What are you going to do with that?
So let's bring playback,
Tom: that's wonderful, Victoria. Thank you so much.
Jeannie: Victoria, congratulations on so many wonderful years of teaching. Thank you for all that you've done for your students and for your school. Many happy, happy years of retirement where you can make more room for play.
Tom: Yeah.
Victoria: that is not a problem for this [00:25:00] girl.