If meditation and yoga asanas have never managed to stir interest in you, the thought of doing them in mid-air certainly will. Known as Aerial Yoga (or anti-gravity yoga), which involves practicing yoga asanas while being suspended in air via a hammock, the yoga variant, an invention of American acrobat and choreographer Christopher Harrison, was recently launched by Chennai-based fitness studio Zorba.
“The most striking thing about this form of yoga is that just 10 minutes of it fetches you the results you usually get after 45 minutes of a regular yoga session,” says Zorba’s founder Sarvesh Shashi. “We introduced it to make yoga more fun for people who usually think of it as a boring workout,” he adds.
With a swing-like hammock (suspended at a height of three to four feet from the ground) replacing the familiar yoga mat here, one is required to take its support to practice various yoga asanas.
“One could meditate, stretch or do any kind of standing or sitting asanas on it, but the person should be acquainted with basic asanas to take up Aerial Yoga in the first place,” says Shashi.
Zorba thereby enrolls students in their aerial yoga sessions only after assessing their fitness levels, flexibility and core strength. As far as age is concerned, Shashi says it is just a number at Zorba as they have even 87-year-olds showing their skills at complicated asanas. “But Aerial Yoga is a complete no for people with physical and muscular pains, knots in the body or any internal problems,” he adds.
After a session of pranayama and basic warm-up exercises or yoga asanas, students learn to balance themselves on the hammock first. “When you are planning to exercise against gravity and the hammock is your sole medium of support, it is prudent to make friends with it first by attaining a comfortable balance on it. Once you have achieved it, you will notice, even standing on the hammock for a few minutes without doing any asanas will give you immense strength,” Shashi says.
While students initially practise postures such as Padmasana, Vajrasana, Dhanurasana, etc on their hammocks, they are allowed to graduate to advanced asanas according to their body’s flexibility and endurance.
The hammock on the other hand proves to be a necessary tool to attain difficult postures such as Sirshasana (headstand) and Vrischikasana (scorpion pose) which involves canting the body upside down. “That is precisely why we recommend this type of yoga for people with back problems,” says yoga instructor Abhishek Choudhury. “The hammock lends their back the required support to do several asanas like Chakrasana (wheel pose) or Bhujangasana (cobra pose) which help in alleviating back pains,” he adds.
Choudhury says this variant of yoga is also beneficial for women suffering from hormone imbalances. “For them, we prescribe asanas such as Savasana (corpse pose), Matsyasana (fish pose), Chakrasana, Halasana (plough pose) and Paschimottanasana (seated forward bend) that address problems of the endocrine system,” he says.
Aerial yoga at the same time could be blended with different dance forms like Zumba or preceded with yoga, acrobatics or a workout in the gym.
And height does give you a high! While performing these exercises on the ground might give different results, Shashi says doing them on the hammock not only strengthens muscles, increases flexibility and addresses health issues, but also increases one’s awareness and focus while infusing them with a sense of psychological fulfillment of being empowered.
“The very act of doing something by defying gravity has a different feel to it. It feels just the way a mountaineer feels after scaling a peak,” Shashi adds.