The aerial yoga hammock is a very versatile prop and it can be a lot of fun to explore creative ways to incorporate it into our yoga practice. The aerial yoga hammock that we use in Unnata® Aerial Yoga is often the same apparatus as the aerial sling aerialists use for aerial acrobatics and circus acts. They are both equally awesome and equally challenging, but they are not one in the same.

Even though the aerial yoga hammock and the circus sling share some obvious and important similarities the two approaches of aerial yoga and aerial circus actually have very little in common!

It’s Not Just In The Details
Let me explain, in aerial yoga we are using the hammock to assist in our yoga practice. Yoga is a grounding practice (even when we’re elevated) that requires no special equipment, although props like the hammock can be incredibly useful. So in aerial yoga, we’re often using the ground and sharing weight with the hammock and that informs the choices we make about how to grip, how to engage or relax, how to sequence, and more.

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Often I hear from a student, “I have a bad back!” But what exactly does that mean? The “back” makes up a large percentage of our body, with 33 vertebrae in total. (Although to be fair, some of those vertebrae are fused together.)

With that much substance and so many moving parts, of course a variety of things can go wrong, or wear down over time. So when a student says “I have a bad back,” she usually doesn’t mean the entire back has all possible problems. Instead, she means that only part of the back has troubles, and only with certain movements.

There may not be a one-size-fits-all solution for every type of back problem, but if you have “bad back” troubles – it’s likely that you can find relief with the support of the yoga hammock in an Unnata^® Aerial Yoga class.

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So you want to improve your Warrior 2, your Handstand, your Plank? Try supplementing your yoga flow classes with Unnata® Aerial Yoga. With a little support from the hammock, you’ll find the strength, balance, and stability to rock your traditional mat poses.

But wait, isn’t aerial yoga different from “regular” yoga?

Although some aerial yoga classes diverge greatly from classical yoga, Unnata® Aerial Yoga is rooted in tradition, and developed specifically to improve an understanding and practice of classical yoga. If you already practice yoga, you may be surprised how easy and familiar it is to join an Unnata® Aerial Yoga class, and how quickly you can breeze through the learning curve of a new activity.

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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is our guide to practicing Yoga. So, it means that everyone who starts to practice yoga seriously must read and study Sutras. However when you are a beginner, only portions of the text apply to you personally. It can be comforting to know that the Yoga Sutra is actually designed for teachers as a guideline for training students. Yoga Sutras are for teachers. And when you begin to teach your first classes you must read and study again.
I read Yoga Sutras mindfully and completely for the first time during my Iyengar Yoga Teachers Training in 2008. It was a compulsory reading and read like an old ancient text not connected with modern life, modern yoga practice, and especially with Iyengar Yoga classes I took. Sutra that hit me seriously was about Asana, because our Iyengar classes were actually only Asana classes. Sutra 2-46 said that “right pose must be firm and without strain” or “Yoga Asanas are steady and comfortable”.
My Asanas at that time were always challenging and my teachers always persuaded us to work in asana, to improve asana, to press harder, to rotate deeper and so on.

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What?  I’ve just seen it… An advertisement about a sanitary pad that absorbs even when upside down!  I can’t believe that a large company of intimate hygiene products has designed pads with that wonderful feature! And suddenly I ask myself, who in their right mind turns upside down during menstruation? Apart from the gorgeous young women appearing in the commercial, with their stunning long hair cascading to the ground, swinging in a trapeze with their nice legs…. Yogis certainly don’t –well, I must confess, I do-. This type of sanitary pad has probably been designed for trapeze artists, gymnasts, acrobats, contortionists, dancers, firewomen, soldiers, astronauts… but not for yogis. Practicing inverted postures during menstruation, as we all know, is a huge mistake. And, another question is, doesn’t the blood come out? It puzzles me and invites me to reflect and search.

I am 52 years old and my menstruation has been appearing and disappearing for a couple of years as it pleases. I think it is trying to tell me that one of these days it won’t come back and my menopause will open the door to another stage in my life. I still remember that in my youth I often heard things like, “when you’re menstruating you shouldn’t wash your hair, or take a shower, or make mayonnaise, and a long list of other things even more ridiculous. The truth is I did them all. At first with fear that something really serious could happen to me or to the mayonnaise and over time and my own judgment, I did them thinking that they were only scary stories, limiting factors that kept women under control.

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I grew up in Colorado where my family and I spent a large part of our time in the Rocky Mountains hiking, camping, and contemplating the silence of nature. I’m sure it came as no surprise to my family, then, when I became a teacher of Hatha Yoga. Like hiking among majestic mountains, Hatha Yoga uses strength, endurance and flexibility to seek an inner calm and peace. My practice of Hatha Yoga is therefore a natural outgrowth from my own personal history.

Many people ask me where aerial yoga comes from, or who invented it. Just like my own study of Hatha Yoga was the natural evolution of my childhood upbringing, Aerial Yoga evolved naturally over time through contributions from many yoga and movement teachers, each using their ingenuity to contribute a puzzle piece to the whole picture of what aerial yoga is today.

As far as I am aware, BKS Iyengar (1918-2014) was the first yoga teacher to hang students off the ground upside-down. He was looking for a way to help his students achieve the king of poses, headstand. Over time, he and his teachers created a whole system of using ropes attached to a smooth wall to suspend a student in a variety of asanas, including a supported headstand. He developed exercises using the rope wall to relieve stress on the joints, and improve postural alignment within asana practice.

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There have been numerous studies in the last ten or so years that have researched the effects of individuals who practice yoga. Some studies were focused on mental influences, some on health benefits, some were more interested in physical benefits and some even wanted to prove cognitive improvements which resulted when practicing yoga.

It is beyond a doubt that a regular yoga practice can improve overall physical well-being, including an increase in flexibility, strength, balance and mobility. It is also a powerful tool to tame anxiety and depression by reducing stress and reconnecting our minds and our hearts with our bodies.

Interest in this field is constantly growing and researchers are looking into possible benefits for many issues that affect millions of people worldwide.

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The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali is a guide to the practice of Yoga. Compiled prior to 400 CE, it is still studied in depth today. In the text, Patañjali lists the Yamas and the Niyamas as the first two steps on the path of cultivating Yoga. Asana, or the postures we usually associate with Yoga classes, is the third step.

If we were to place a seed on a plate, water it and place it in the sun for warmth and energy, even with careful tending, the seed still will not develop far. Without soil to take root in, and draw nutrients from, how is a plant to grow?

The Yamas and Niyamas are the soil for the seed of our Yoga practice. If we do not “plant” our daily Asana practice in the rich and fertile soil of the Yamas and the Niyamas, then true health will not grow out of our efforts.

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