I’ve come to love aerial yoga. It’s fun, it’s adventurous, as you practice, it can be beautiful expression of your body. Aerial yoga is a type of yoga that uses fabric as a prop. It gives you opportunity to explore playful postures that are otherwise not accessible for most students on a mat yoga practice.
1. Improves Mood and It’s FUN -Inversions (going upside down) in general help improve mood such as anxiety, depression, swings. When you invert there is sense of playfulness and adventure which stimulates good chemicals in your brain that improves your mood. If there’s anything that is serious in aerials, it is seriously fun. It’s a natural anti-depressant.
2. Tones and strengthen Body– With mindful alignment, guidance of breath and using of bandhas or deep core muscles to lift you up and keep you balanced and stabilized while you’re flying, gravity is working harder = muscles working harder, make sense to me! Certain movements hit muscles you hardly use on a regular workout or yoga practice, the pulling up uses our back muscles, when was the last time you pulled yourself up? We do a lot of pushing in yoga and regular workout but hardly any pull up that’s fun. Hello sexy back!
3. Improves Flexibility– For sure. Although I do caution students that are over flexible not to go crazy on the stretch because using fabric deepens a stretch even more than a traditional yoga stretch. If you are over flexible, back off of a little bit, keep your bones and muscles stable and engaged before you do the posture. You’re yoga instructor should be able to give you safety guidance. For those that consider yourselves a working stiff, you’re in for a delicious treat. The stretch feels so good on your body.
4. It can soothe low back pain– when you go upside down on a yoga fabric, you’re spine vertebras decompress because of the opposition from the gravity. Totally make sense.
5. Best svasana ever!- you are suspended above the ground in a cocoon of hammock, sleeping like a baby. It’s the deluxe of class relaxation if you’re looking for one.
Although there are a ton of benefits you reap from practicing aerial, consult your doctor! According to Hufftington Post blog if any of the following apply to you, stick to a mat yoga or other forms of exercise.
• Pregnancy
• Eye diseases
• Vertigo
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Bone disorders
• High/Low blood pressure
• Prosthetic hips
• Colds/Flu/Any condition that blocks the nasal passages
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