So I Finally Tried Aerial Yoga

I’ve been practicing yoga for four years and just finally went to an aerial yoga class this past weekend! After sharing my body image post on Wednesday, I’m finally getting around to posting my aerial yoga recap. I somehow convinced Tyler to come with me (he’s a gem) and neither of us had any idea what to expect. When we arrived we were greeted by a nice and helpful studio team. They helped us get settled and didn’t make us feel silly at all for having no idea what we were doing. The hammocks were set at all different lengths to best suit the different heights of the yogis in class. Needless to say, 6’4 Tyler and the 5′ yogi next to us needed very different lengths. There were a few regulars in class who were so kind and helpful, and showed us how to find a hammock that best suited our height to avoid hitting our noggins on the floor during inversions. 🙂

Once we got settled and waited for class to get started we just sat and swung on the hammocks, enoying the show that was taking place around us — some of the regulars were pulling out some Cirque du Soleil moves. We felt like total newbs but once the class got started the teacher set the tone with her inclusive dialogue and told us and the other newbies to wave her over if we ever needed help or had any questions. Although I had no idea what was coming, I felt really comfortable and relaxed by the welcoming energy in the room. We started out in savasana, which is basically when you extend the hammock as big as it gets and lay in it like you would lay in an actual hammock. It was very relaxing and I felt like a giddy kid swaying back and forth. We then got off of our hammocks and used the fabric to stretch and warm up our bodies. Leveraging the material allowed for a really deep stretch and it was nice to completely let go of my muscles and rely on the support of the hammock.

After warming up, we started to get into the “tricks.” We stood on the hammocks and swung back and forth and I couldn’t stop smiling. Guys, I was standing on a piece of fabric that was extended from the ceiling like I was in the circus!! It was so much fun. We then moved into tree pose while standing and the limited surface space really makes you engage the muscles of your standing leg. It can be easy to sink into the hip of your standing leg in a regular tree pose, so I really enjoyed this engagement and the awareness it brought into my body. It’s always important to listen to your yoga teacher but especially in an aerial class because if you put a limb behind the material when it’s supposed to be in front of it you can easily fall out of the hammock. Everyone stayed safe in our class, but the teacher was very attentive to everyone’s limb placement and checked on the newbies frequently. 🙂

We moved through some exercises that focused on the core and dang, ab work is much harder with such a wider range of motion. It was must more challenging to move through the ab work using the hammock, which I would compare to using TRX straps at the gym. Hello, core (insert flame emoji). The teacher then asked if the class was ready to go upside down and the whole class got very excited. We started off by placing the hammocks at our hips and bending over the fabric, coming into a ball shape. I’m sure there’s a proper name for it that I don’t know. 🙂 Beginning in this simple shape allowed us to get acclimated to having our hips over our heads and get used to being upside down. Then we really started to use the hammock to get completely inverted! We went into a vampire pose with our legs and feet extended above our heads and moved into an inverted bound angle pose (below). The teacher gave us lots of time to play in these poses and was very helpful and encouraging.

Two women behind us were basically pros. They were navigating their hammocks like acrobats and were doing splits, straddles, inverted spins and a plethora of other tricks I can’t fathom how they got into. One of the pros was almost double our age, and needless to say we were super impressed with her elegance and skill. The instructor then showed us how to do a cool trick called flying vampire and we wrapped us class feeling pretty good about our new trick. We ended in a sweet, long savasana with a lovely assist from the instructor and felt totally blissed out and relaxed after class.

I smiled so much the entire class and had a really great experience. I’ve seen lots of pretty pictures of aerial on Instagram, but I had no idea how fun and childlike it would be. If you haven’t tried aerial yoga yet, I definitely recommend giving it a try! I mean, you get to swing from the ceiling like your 5 years old…does it get any better? I will definitely be back and hope to learn some of those crazy circus poses. Who knows, maybe even acro yoga will be next…if I can convince Tyler to come be my partner. 😉