I Tried Aerial Yoga So You Don't Have To

One of my resolutions this year is to try (more) new things. So I decided to give aerial yoga a try. It was...hard and not at all what I thought it was going to be. First, I've been doing yoga for a couple of years now. It's not my most favorite workout, but I L-O-V-E a good stretch. If yoga consisted of only stretching without all the poses and twisting, it would definitely be my number one. Second, aerial yoga is not offered at my regular gym so I went to an actual local yoga studio where I knew no one including the instructor. So right out of the gate I'm feeling uncomfortable and nothing is familiar.

Luckily, there were only two other yogis in class that night and of course the instructor. For most of the class I felt a little spastic. While the other two girls seemed to have control of their hammock and body, I often struggled to stay facing the front of the room and was flailing about for a solid portion of the hour. I wasn't a complete failure. I kept up with class and did as I was told, but maybe just not as gracefully. It was my first time after all.

There was one pose that reminded me of Spider Man. The one with Toby Maguire. When he lowers himself down, upside-down and kisses Mary-Jane played by Kirsten Dunst.

This is the pose we did. I was swaying a little and felt the need to drop my hands to the floor often. This however is not a photo from our class. Click the photo for the source.

One complaint that I have about this type of practice is I didn't walk away from the class having felt stretched or relaxed for that matter. Since I was a child, I have been involved in activities where stretching is part of the sport (i.e. gymnastics, dance, cheer etc.). So I've been abnormally flexible my whole life. In the aerial class, we never got into any deep stretches, so I missed that.

At the end of class you lay in your hammock for Savasana, all cocooned and squished up. Here are the two problems I had with that. One, a tight enclosed space is not my friend. Two, my hammock smelled like stale perspiration from yogis past. Not relaxing at all. Although, at the beginning of Savasana, the instructor crawled under each of us and gave us a short back massage and I DID like that. By the time it was time to say 'Namaste' and bow to the instructor, I was facing the back of the room again.

So as I was laying there I was internally struggling with myself. I really wanted someone to take a picture of me so that I would have physical proof that I tried it and that I was there. So I kept telling myself, "Just ask the instructor, it's not like you're going to come back here anyway. Explain to her that you want it for your blog, she will understand." But at the end of class we all started to clean up and I just didn't have the nerve to ask her to snap me in one of the poses. I'll have to get one at the next class I try.

The next day, I was sore. My right oblique was super sore and the surface of my hip bones still feel bruised from some of the poses we did where we had the hammock across our pelvis and we were putting our weight on it. It still feels a little tender.

I know I haven't said too many positive things about the class, but I didn't hate it. I would try it again just to see if it is something that you have to do more than once to like or if it really isn't my type of practice. If you are thinking about trying, you should! 

Susan "Namaste In Regular Yoga" B.