Aerial Yoga @Vertical Club Helsinki

"This is going to be FUN" was the first thought on my mind when I saw the green hammocks hanging from Vertical Club's ceiling. I'd done Hatha, Astanga, Iyengar, Yin and Bikram before I booked an Aerial Yoga class - on the very first day the sport arrived to Finland.

One of the founders of Vertical Club, Laura Gröhn, has studied Aerial Yoga in New York while practising with AERA. I attended an Aerial Yoga Lempeä ("Gentle") class which was instructed by Vilja Eskelinen. The class is suitable for beginners with no previous yoga or acrobatics background. We started on the floor and gradually moved onto movements done off the ground. The hammock is used to support some (or all) of the body's weight in different yoga postures, asanas. Those who have done Iyengar Yoga will find some similarities, as the props are meant to enable you to do the movements with proper alignments. It seems that this time all seven attendants were pole dancers as everyone managed to do even inversions, V-invert style.

Vilja helps Anni out...

That's how it's done. This move was called "Arkku" - a direct translation would be "The Chest".

It would be stupid to judge any sport after one class and I especially hate it when people think that all yoga is the same. My first impression is that Aerial Yoga is fun and it will probably build both strength and flexibility over time. However, as I recently got addicted to Bikram Yoga, "yoga" in my vocabulary has come to mean intensive 90-minute sessions in a room heated to 39C (102F). I'm not ready to switch practices just yet, even though I will miss relaxing inside the hammock...

Namaste!

Posted in: me, pole dancing classes, Vertical Club