HAVE you ever considered trying yoga? How about doing it suspended?

Zoë Arscott, co-founder of Chai Studios, a boutique fitness studio, and aerial yoga instructor told the Jamaica Observer that aerial yoga is a fusion style that incorporates pilates aerial skills, yoga and gymnastics.

Sounds exciting?

According to Arscott, it is. In fact, the aerial yoga instructor said it incorporates the bringing together of mind and body, which is akin to traditional yoga but with a fun and thrill factor to it.

“It’s absolutely different from regular yoga in the sense that we use a hammock to work with and we do it off the ground,” shared Arscott. “So, instead of working against gravity, we are working with gravity.”

She explained that regular aerial yoga incorporates sun salutation but with the aid of the hammock. She also said there are a lot of flying fitness techniques that work on the core as well as pilates techniques, flips and inversions — all with the aid of the hammock.

Arscott explained that in aerial yoga, there is non-compression inversions which help to strengthen the spine and essentially aid in realigning the body.

“So, it realigns the body, rejuvenates the body, re-energises the body, and it is an anti-ageing (fitness fusion),” Arscott insisted.

And guess what? You do not have to have yoga experience or be a fitness junkie. The aerial yoga instructor told Your Health Your Wealth that each instructor cues the clients for each movement and that anyone can get into a pose as effortlessly as another.

“The anti-gravity hammock is a silk hammock. It can stretch only one way. It is nine feet in length, six feet in width…and it can hold up to 1000 pounds,” Arscott said of the hammock that is used in aerial yoga.

She insisted that once a client you can release your fear, then anyone can do and enjoy aerial yoga.

However, if you are pregnant or not sure you are expecting, or if you suffer from glaucoma and high blood pressure, Arscott said in these cases aerial yoga would not be recommended so as not to aggravate symptoms associated with the existing conditions.

“There are several health benefits apart from just detoxing the body. Once you start to turn your body upside down you start to shake things up… you shaking things up is allowing your body to release all the toxins. So it does rejuvenate the body by detoxing the body,” Arscott noted. “It also (builds) upper body strength, lower body strength, core strength, it lubricates the joints, and it realigns the body.”

The boutique fitness studio co-founder told Your Health Your Wealth that as far as she is aware, Chai Studios is the only studio currently offering aerial yoga.

A session usually lasts for an hour and it includes warming up, cooling down as well as your resting pose.

“The breathing technique is the aspect we incorporate in aerial yoga because you still want to maintain the mind, body and spiritual relationship, that is what allows you to release tensions in the body,” Arscott insisted. “Warming up is to make sure that you are acquainted with the apparatus and comfortable with the apparatus. And then from there you can enter each pose. While cooling down again brings the body down, brings your awareness down and consciously relaxes the body.”

She admitted that aerial yoga is not very popular in Jamaica but insisted that it is a growing form of fusion fitness in the United States of America.

Arscott told Your Health Your Wealth that once you can erase the fear, you can enjoy the various benefits to be had from aerial yoga.