Featured in Deccan Herald

Try AY Aerial Yoga for Flexibility

Yoga is one of the most ancient forms of exercise. However, the beauty of yoga lies in its flexibility and versatility. Aerial yoga, is the latest innovation, which provides an absolute mind-body-soul experience, without compromising on its authenticity.

There’s no denying that this will be one of the toughest exercises for yoga enthusiasts. A combination of upper body strength and stamina is required to master the moves. Aerial yoga and pilates stimulate your endorphins to boost your mood naturally, and they can help strengthen your core and increase joint mobility. Flying bird yoga helps build strength and stamina.

Apart from offering benefits of regular yoga, aerial yoga gives you more freedom of movement, as you can move and flex your body into new positions. Let us take a look at some of the advantages of aerial yoga:

* It increases a range of motions in the joints and causes your muscles to stretch well. However, the most important benefit is that it makes you stretch out your spine fully. When you sit or stand all day, the spine compresses and tension is built in the curves of the spine – either in the lumbar or in an upper thoracic area. By hanging upside down on the aerial slings, you will be able to decompress the spine, and elongate the space between the joints.

* By putting you in a more challenging situation than usual, aerial yoga forces you to be more alert and aware of your surroundings. You will also try to concentrate harder because you’re not used to being suspended in the air during yoga practice.

* It is also a great core workout because you have to engage your core muscles to balance and stabilise the body since gravity is working harder on your body than usual forcing your muscles to work harder too.

* Much like traditional yoga, aerial yoga is a great stress buster. Not only do you use poses and stretches common to other forms of yoga to relieve stress, but you also experience the joy of knowing that you did something new and exciting, which makes you feel good.

Flying bird yoga helps you to move more freely, with less effort, by counteracting gravity. Suspension in the air releases tension on the bones and muscles, increasing flexibility and deepening your practice. Suspended yoga strengthens core muscles and increases spinal and shoulder flexibility.

Apart from this, flying bird yoga also aids digestion, improves memory, cures heart diseases and age-related disorders.
(The author Grand Master Akshar is founder, chairman, course director, Akshar Yoga)

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/644547/try-flying-bird-yoga-flexibility.html