Yoga: That thing you thought you'd never try but totally should
Petting a cat was by far the closest form of yoga I had ever achieved: It is relaxing and slows the mind and it is not even in the same galaxy as the ancient Hindu discipline but there was no way I could master – even comprehend – the specific breath control, the postures, or (especially) the meditation. Then Terry Gardner told me she’d been in a car accident. A serious one. Her chiropractor had made a few suggestions, one that she try yoga to help with the numbness and pain.
Namaste from above:
The benefits of aerial yoga
Aerial yoga: the only way a hammock will make you get up and move. So how does flying yoga – an anti-gravity exercise combining elements of acrobatics and asana, or posture – help with your health without making you feel as though you’ve unwillingly become part of Cirque du Soleil? According to Nate Metz of Kaya Wellness Center in Rehoboth Beach, it’s all about the benefit to the body.
“There is minimal-to-no impact,” Metz said. Suspended from a ceiling, your body is supported by a hammock, which allows for more joint space, decompression of the spine, and decreased pressure. It is therapeutic exercise at its highest. Aerial yoga poses like the downward dog, in which the hip hangs against the hammock and the body bends forward over the fabric, allow one to practice traditional yoga poses and physical exercises.
“You can do planks, lunges, acrobatic work,” Metz said; in other words, many workouts can be made into an aerial yoga routine. It turns rough exercise into an equally vigorous one without the discordance. It also improves balance and body alignment for any ability while encouraging awareness of the body, a meditative state, and being in the moment.
“Aerial in particular is very beneficial to the spine during inversion, in which the head goes lower than the heart,” he said. “You’re getting contraction through the entire length of the spine without pressure on the head and neck.”
Aerial yoga isn’t right for everyone. People with vertigo or physical limitations, or those who just can’t resonate with it, will have a difficult time making it part of their life and may have to move on to something else. But that doesn’t mean yoga isn’t right for them; they just haven’t found their style yet.
“I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Gardner said. “It looked so hard.” She tried it anyway. The yoga styles she learned over the years made such a dramatic impact on her life, physically and spiritually, that she decided to teach it. She has done so for the past 15 years, and has been a yogi (technically yogini for women) for 30 years.
Different styles
For many, one of the main health benefits of yoga is the gained ability to de-stress. For Nate Metz, an aerial yoga teacher at Kaya Wellness Center in Rehoboth Beach, it was also a way to combat depression and anxiety. As part of his holistic approach to healing, which includes meditation and essential oils, yoga helped him come off his anti-depressant medications.
Yoga is not one particular position or style or way of being. It is thousands of years old, of Sanskrit origin roughly translating to “union," and serves as an umbrella term for philosophy, physical practice, style, discipline, and spirituality. There is a lot to it, which is an understatement for non-yogis (as an example, Samadhi is the eighth and final limb of yoga, when the meditator transcends the Self for the ultimate state of enlightenment). Like Gardner said, there are many, many styles of yoga.
“I tell all my students they should try three different kinds,” said Gardner.
For Metz, the kripalu style of yoga was the one.
“When I started taking classes in that style,” he said, “that’s when I found myself coming to class every week.” Kripalu has a more intuitive flow, according to Metz: It’s not so much a set sequence (such as asana, which is posture and pose) as it is tuning into the body and finding what feels good next.
At Rehoboth Beach Yoga, where Gardner serves as director and teaches, svaroopa is the focal style. In essence, this style of yoga decompresses the spine and helps ease tension, which sounds clinical considering how one of Gardner’s students put it: “I feel like I got a massage from the inside out.”
“There is a deep sensation of physical release,” added Gardner. Although she’d practiced yoga for many years, before being introduced to svaroopa she still had some pain in her body. The yoga she had been practicing was incredibly vigorous, so when she slowed down, the pain started going away.
“My body felt healed and repaired,” she said. “Being pain-free gave me a lot more stamina and endurance.” The slow pace of svaroopa works the body in a different way that more exercise-centered styles of yoga don’t focus on. But all yoga is good yoga, according to Gardner. And all forms seek the union of breath, body, mind, and heart.
“Maybe we had to start with a little more of the physical piece,” said Involution Yoga owner and instructor Kate Fitzgerald. “But no matter what kind of yoga you’re practicing, you’re still getting that spiritual piece. After a while your body gets stronger. Now, when I get on my mat, I feel at home.”
Svaroopa has helped Gardner’s students with anything from sciatica to stress, from migraines to quieting the mind through meditation. Metz has seen people use it for weight loss, to overcome mental disorders, and to recover from bodily injuries.
The many benefits of yoga
The activation of the parasympathetic nervous system through yoga is one of the most important health benefits of the practice, according to Metz and Fitzgerald. Yoga is about the connection and linking of the asana with the breath; this is what differentiates it from other forms of exercise.
“When we focus on our breathing, we are in our present moment,” Fitzgerald said. “When the parasympathetic moment happens, the body heals itself.” No longer are we in the fight-or-flight mode of the sympathetic, and this leads to restorative processes such as rest and relaxation, which, as Metz said, help boost the immune system.
Yoga doesn’t replace surgery or medicine in all instances, Gardner said, but it is one of the best additions to a healthy lifestyle.
“If you’ve gone too long with a bad back and your disks are bulging, you need surgery,” Gardner said, “but you can come back [to yoga] after.”
For Metz, yoga is not the only answer either. “It’s about having many avenues of support for being healthy,” he said. “It’s never just meditating or just eating healthy; it’s having a lot of tools in your tool box that is much more supportive.”
Yoga is a domino effect for good health in many people, and good health is a side effect of yoga for Fitzgerald.
“Maybe you give up meat or alcohol,” Fitzgerald said. “Those things start to shed [through the practice of yoga]. You start to have more compassion for yourself.”
Most of Gardner’s students are over forty, her oldest being 91. She will help people who have busy schedules create at-home routines, including for meditation. Meditation is one of the limbs of yoga, and for many, achieving this state seems absurdly difficult, the attempt at deep concentration and silence while the inner voice pounds ceaselessly. But that’s a very extreme expectation to have right off the bat.
“Meditation is actually just taking a step back to observe how the mind is working,” Metz said. “That you are aware your mind is racing – that’s step one to meditation. You can sit still with your eyes closed for five minutes? That’s awesome. Over time your mind will slow down.”
Fitzgerald has watched her students surpass the physical, even those who originally came just for the exercise portion.
“I’ve seen an empowerment that happens,” she said. “They’re able to conquer some of their fears. They don’t get worked up about things as much. You can see that they’re dealing with their lives in a better way.”
And a lot of her students have become teachers.
“You see this lightbulb go off,” Fitzgerald said. “Like, ‘I have to teach other people.’ It’s neat to watch that trickle-down effect.”
“It’s rewarding to watch them explore,” Metz said of his students. “It’s amazing what yoga can do. I’m very fortunate to see the change one student at a time. It helps them in such a broad way.”
I’ll still pet my cat – it just won’t be part of any yoga routine.
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