HAPPENINGS
If traditional yoga doesn’t excite you because it’s just you stretching alone on a mat trying to understand your thoughts and feelings, try acroyoga! It’s a fun, experimental and social sport that combines yoga and acrobatics to create a completely unique experience.
As a modern exercise, acroyoga demands yogis to work together with others to hold dynamic positions in the air.
Dhanak Aijaz, Aroon Kumar, Ajlaan Raza - dedicated acroyoga instructors and founders of Karachi Acroyoga community - are promoting this exciting form of yoga in our part of the world.
Recently, they got together at Alliance Francaise to teach a bunch of acroyoga enthusiasts. Dhanak explains the art of acroyoga: “This unique form of yoga incorporates communication, act of balancing and flexibility to create yoga patterns. One person (base) stays on the ground with back pressed against the floor and raises arms and legs in the air to support a second person (flyer) above.
“Throughout this exercise, partners communicate with each other to maintain the posture. For us, acroyoga is not just another form of exercise that helps you stay fit; it symbolizes community building! These days, we are so obsessed with our personal growth that we just don’t realize what our social responsibilities are.”
It becomes more about building trust between the partners and with practice you understand that to have complete faith in your partner to support your body is crucial for getting the perfect acroyoga postures.
About Karachi Acroyoga
“We started in 2017 with free of cost masterclasses in 2017; we had two groups of 30 people to teach in the beginning. People were thrilled and wanted us to conduct proper classes for teaching acroyoga. At that time we were not certified so we didn’t want to take any risk. A trainer has to ensure that the person lifted lands safely without falling and nobody gets hurt.
We also used to call people for acrojam sessions every week where participants would bring pictures of postures they wanted to and we helped them with it.” - Dhanak
Some fun postures
Front bird pose: the base should keep his/her legs parallel to each other. Bend your knees and place the soles on the ground. The flyer should stand near the base’s feet. The base should lift his feet and place them on the flyer’s hips.
Throne pose: the base lies on the floor on his back with the knees bent and soles facing upwards towards the sky. Maintain shoulder width distance between the feet. The flyer stands in front of the base at the feet.
High-flying whale: this is a gentle yet deep backbend for the flyer’s upper thoracic spine. It demands a little more balancing skill from the base.