According to Horvat (1994), entering school is an important intervention in child development. The school, with its forms of work and requirements in a certain way, represents a series of restrictions and at the same time the development of individual motor abilities of children. The processes of myelinization of the brain cortex and the rapid development of the big brain between six and ten years allow the development of coordination of movement and the most successful learning of motion patterns (Horvat, 1994). Also, the child has an extremely large amount of accumulated energy that can be directed and released by various forms of movement. This includes the yoga, which has spread extensively in the last period in Slovenia.
The question arises as to whether yoga affects the physical abilities of children in the first grade of elementary school, which is also the goal of the master's thesis. We wanted to determine whether yoga positively affects motor skills, or there are differences between the experimental in the control group and there are differences between boys in girls within the experimental group in the motility of the yoga program.
The master's thesis is divided into a theoretical and empirical part. In the theoretical part, we first described the history of yoga, its characteristics and advantages, and described the positive effects of asanas, which we have also illustrated. We then devoted ourselves to the sports cartridge and its measurements, and ultimately defined the motor skills.
In the empirical part we described in more detail a survey involving 38 pupils of the first grade of the Brinje Primary School, which were divided into an experimental and control group. The experimental group performed yoga during the morning protection three times a week for 20–30 minutes for eight weeks, and then with the help of a sports cartridge, it was determined whether this activity influenced the child's physical abilities and how. To determine the differences between the experimental and the control group, and later between the girls and boys within the experimental group, the contingency tables were used and the hi2 was calculated.
The results showed that the experimental group improved the abilities of the speed of alternating movements, the flexibility in the lower back and legs, and the strength in the arms. A comparison with the results of the control group showed that the pupils who performed the yoga only improved the results of the measurement task of the precancer on the bench (ie, the flexibility in the lower back and legs). In contrast, there were no statistically significant differences between the experimental and the control group; however, we found that on average, pupils of the experimental group had better results in the measurement tasks: touching the plates with a hand, long jump from the spot, overcoming obstacles back and in the hinge. The results of boys and girls in the experimental group were better for the girls in the measure task of touching the plates with the arm and lifting the hull in 60 seconds, which means that, compared to boys, the speed of alternating movements and the muscular endurance of the hull improved.
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