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Acroyoga


Acroyoga (also written Acro-Yoga or AcroYoga) is a physical practice which combines yoga and acrobatics.

There are now many schools of AcroYoga. The original two schools were Acroyoga Montreal and Acroyoga Inc.. Acroyoga Montreal was founded by Jessie Goldberg and Eugene Poku in 1999 combining acrobatics, yoga and dance. Acroyoga Inc., began in San Francisco in 2006, founded by Jason Nemer and Jenny Klein. This practice blends acrobatics, yoga and healing arts. Both schools offer teaching certifications, and despite some differences have many similar poses while using gravity to promote strengthening and stretching.

AcroYoga may provide physical and mental health benefits. In addition to the exercise and strength building aspects of AcroYoga the partner balancing can improve concentration and the massage elements can provide stress relief. However Acroyoga is more vigorous than many traditional yoga practices and this may lead to more injuries.

There are three primary roles in an Acro-yoga practice: base, flyer, and spotter.

Acrobatics is the physical part of Acroyoga that uses gymnastics techniques to build strength, flexibility, trust and teamwork between partners. This is called Solar Acrobatic Practice by the California school.Front plank is a basic Acroyoga pose where one partner (base) supports the flying partner above them with their hands and feet.

Yoga reflects the physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines of traditional Yoga. This is called Yoga Practice by the California school.

Therapeutics includes massage, therapeutic flying and partner yoga. The California school teaches Thai massage and inversion massage with their Lunar Healing Arts Practice. The Montreal school differs from the California school in this area as they teach restorative and yin yoga. A basic therapeutic pose is Folded Leaf in which one partner is inverted and supported on the vertical legs of the other partner whose hands are then free for back massage.

Learning Acroyoga requires strength training, flexibility training and technique training. Strength training is accomplished through repetition of exercises like push-ups and hand walking. Flexibility training is best done at the end of a session with a partner. Learning good Acroyoga technique takes time and effort and is best learned with an expert teacher. One important Acroyoga technique is called stacking the bones. This involves the base partner keeping arms and legs straight to maximize the weight load on bones rather than muscles to support the flyer.


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