Day 263: Aerial Yoga

Yep, you heard me.  AERIAL Yoga, people.

I used to hate yoga, because apparently the only yoga I had ever tried was slow, granola, breathe deeply and don't move for 10 minutes yoga.  And I have an exercise (and life?) attention span of about 30 seconds.  But then I found a more active type of yoga.  With lots of core, movement, balance and sweat.

In August, a friend and I took an Aerials class with the Cirque Eloise at Proctors.  And now when I grow up, I want to be a circus performer.  The one who does those high graceful poses on the silks.  Or "tissues" as the French speaking instructors called them.  I was so in my element.  I could have stayed there all day twirling away on those silks.

(excuse fuzzy iphone pics.  Also I was twirling, and therefore hard to capture)

Shortly thereafter, another dear, dear friend gave me a gift certificate for my birthday for 3 classes of Aerial Yoga at Good Karma Studio in Albany.  AERIAL YOGA.  I didn't even know that that existed.  Obviously she knows me well.  I was thrilled to tears.  For real.  And I finally got to try it out today.  

So I will try to explain.  There was a fabric hammock type deal which the owner/instructor, Jessica, calls the swing.  Which you can sit in, lay on, extend limbs into and flip upside down holding onto it with your legs.  There are pictures of what I mean on the website.  We spent the first ten minutes of the class upside down hanging from this piece of fabric and simultaneously doing yoga breathing and stretches.  If you can get past the first 2-3 minutes of the blood head rush, it actually settles down quite nicely.  Apparently they say that you can clear your head and focus, yoga-style, much more easily when you are inverted.  

Obviously I couldn't take a pic of myself.  So here are some other random ladies doing Their inverted thing.

I'm pretty sure that I stretched muscles today that haven't moved in 25 years.  It was unlike anything I have ever done, and you know I loved it.  Every stretchy, balance challenging second.  And I can't wait to go back.  It's really just a massive shame that this studio isn't much, much closer to me. I think I could become a very frequent customer.  Let me know if anyone ever wants to go give it a try.  Jessica offers drop in classes.  You can just sign up online.