conditioning for aerial acrobats Archives -

Have you heard about restorative yoga?

Some people say this is an advanced practice. What do you think?

Restorative yoga involves spending from 3 to 8min in a “relatively” comfortable pose. The goal won’t be stretching, but it might be a consequence of the practice as long as no pain is involved.

Not all of us have the capacity to see the importance of taking quality downtime and allow your brain to stop controlling everything.

I used to think, that practicing restorative yoga or taking time to rest was a waste of time.

Yes, I always love training, and I used to push my self to the limits, most of the time
Maybe you are like me or maybe you have already a good understanding of how important is to take time to rest and recover

“Regardless of what are you training for, a good rest is essential to high-level performance, but many still overtrain and feel guilty when they take a day off. The body repairs and strengthens itself in the time between workouts, and continuous training can actually weaken the strongest athletes”.- Elizabeth Quinn- verywellfit.com

Rest days are critical to sports performance for a variety of reasons. Some are physiological and some are psychological.
Rest is physically necessary so that the muscles can repair, rebuild, and strengthen. For recreational athletes, building in rest days can help maintain a better balance between home, work, and fitness goals.

When your life is racing full-speed ahead, so is your mind. Restorative yoga helps provide that physical and mental balance to prevent stress and anxiety, through the use of props (blankets, yoga blocks or pillows) that allow you to hold poses longer, giving you all the benefits of deep, passive stretching.

Here are some of the benefits of practicing Restorative Yoga:

🧘🏻‍♀️ It allows your muscles to recover with gentle moves.

Is not about the quantity is about the quality of staying still and present when performing poses

🧘🏻‍♀️It helps us to slow down and cultivate the skill of conscious relaxation.

Depending on you lifestyle, most of us are programmed to “do” a lot—it keeps us engaged and makes us feel productive and in control. But our habit of running around, conquering our to-do lists, and fueling ourselves with coffee and ambition can often be a way we avoid deep discomforts and unwelcome feelings in the body and mind.

Restorative yoga asks us to stop engaging in all the doing and face what we really need to look at about ourselves. To learn about, befriend, and care for the whole of ourselves in a way we are not used to. This is an essential step for health and healing, for true renewal. A lot of people think relaxing is about letting go, but rather than throwing out, we are trying to make space for what’s uncomfortable and to allow more space for the full experience of who we are.

🧘🏻‍♀️ It helps us discover where we are holding tension.
Once you come to this realization, you can make small changes in your everyday life to reduce the stress and tension you allow to build up in your body.

🧘🏻‍♀️ Enhance the flexibility
All forms of yoga help make you bendier, but regular use of restorative poses leads you to a passive flexibility session
However, Restorative yoga is not a stretching class and there is no end goal involved, like being able to touch your toes after 10 sessions. You are exploring what happens when you release the tension your body habitually holds.

🧘🏻‍♀️The slower pace and deep breathing that you get in a restorative yoga practice triggers the parasympathetic nervous system and helps us to reduce the level of stress. Optimizing energy flow to the organs, tissue renewal, and reduced “fight or flight” response.

Little Note:
Restorative Yoga is not the same as Yin Yoga, we will talk more about it in the next post.

Here I am sharing a video tutorial I have created for yo to give it a try and practice at home.

If you practice aerial acrobatics , pole dance or you are curious about how yoga can help you stay flexible and strong join the private facebook group “Yoga for every Acrobat”..

Where I am sharing yoga tutorial specific for keeping our body strong flexible and mobil.

If you’ve ever asked yourself

“How do other aerialists make this all look so effortless and graceful?”.

I get that question quite often

The answer is: CONDITIONING.

Efficient conditioning done consistently, with proper rest and recovery.

Did you know that yoga can help you to improve your conditioning practice?

Yes!, Yoga can help so many people in so many way.

And the best of all, you don’t need to be flexible to start practicing,

Let me tell you something, when I was in my earliest twenties I had a lot of energy and I only care about improving my physical condition without being aware on how important it is to work in your wellbeing integrating mind, body and soul in order to improve yourself in any discipline.

Maybe you are like me and you practice aerial circus acrobatics, maybe you are a professional or you just started taking classes. Maybe you are a gymnast, a pole dancer, a rock climber or you just enjoy to play around practicing acrobatics postures of yoga like headstand, crows and arm balances.

If so, let me ask you somehting;

How long have you been practicing and how much have you improve?

It is already proved that we won’t get different result by doing always the same thing.

Every time I am in my trainings dealing with a hard move during my climbing sessions or if I am trying an inverted posture in my aerial silks trainings; I try to take the time to discover a new awareness of the posture and focus my attention in the details.

How do I feel my feet? Am I using my strength in an efficient way?

To be able to brig your mind to be present in the moment is something I learned form my yoga practice and I can transfer that to any other areas of my life.

It helps me so much what I practice on the mat to prepare my body and my mind to be ready for my aerial trainings or when I go to rock climb for fun.

But you might be wondering how does that exactly happen?

Basically I practice de yoga postures where I am using the same muscles or similar movements I will do later in my trainings.

For ex:

1- If I am working in improving my straddle position for the aerial trainings; in yoga I will practice Upavistha Konasana

Another examples;

2- If I am working an aerial pose or trick witch demands lots of shoulder opening in yoga I will practice Reverse Prayer Pose, also known in Sanskrit as Viparita Namaskarasana and I make sure that I am present with intention the palms of my hands as well as my fingers.

In Sanskrit the name is Paschim Namaskara or Paschim Namaste.

Benefits:

💗It is a heart-opening posture that increases flexibility and strength in the arms, shoulders, chest, and wrists.

Level:

Beginner- Intermediate

Equipment:

You don’t need any equipment to practice but you can experiment trying to hold a yoga block or something in between your reverse prayer hands

3- If I want to work in the flexibility of my spine ; I will practice a yoga twist pose named, Marichyasana twist. (there are many variations of the pose)

Benefits:

It calms the mind and the body.
It stretches the shoulders and the upper back.
Massages the internal organs and improves digestion.

Level

Beginner/ Intermediate

Equipment

None, but you could use a yoga strap or a belt to hold between the hands if needed.

3- Urdhva Dhanurasana pose also known in English as the Bridge pose.

Benefits:

Expands chest, lungs, shoulders.
Stretches hip flexors, muscles of the abdomen, wrists.
Strengthens the gluteus, hamstrings, lower back muscles
Enlivens the heart chakra and throat chakra.
Increases energy.

Level:

Intermediate/ Advance

Equipmnets:

You don’t need any equipment to practice but you can experiment trying to push from a safe elevated surface like yoga blocks or the step of stairs, if you feel your shoulders are tight.

And the examples can go on; because I have been there I know how it feel when you can not tell what are you doing wrong and why you can make any progress an an specify posture or trick.

Bringing together my years of experiences as a practitioner, my university education and my observance in my students; I have create a conditioning workshop specific for people who practice aerial circus acrobatics, such us aerial hoop, aerial silk or aerial trapeze combining yoga tools and physical education trainings.

If it happen you are in Cayman Islands I am leaving here a flyer with the info and a link.

If you are no currently in Cayman Islands but you understand the importance of working your body with love and awareness being respectful of your possibilities and limitation, knowing these limitation will transform in achievements with the practice then add other kind of practice like yoga to improve your training.

I will suggest to practice:

Vinyasa yoga if you are looking to build endurance
Hatha Yoga to cultivate more awareness.
Restorative yoga to rest and recover your body.

Are you interested in having access to an online training where you can practice at home?

Let me know, send me an email to tell me what would you like to learn online to make your performance as an acrobat easier

Join the Facebook Group, Yoga for every Acrobat and take advantage of the weekly videos tutorials I posted with easy yoga postures to practice at home

Find the practice that suits you better.