Acro Yoga – The Union Between Acrobatics And Yoga

Acro Yoga combines acrobatics, yoga and therapeutics to form a physical practice that encourages play and connection. It often involves a partnership or group dynamic where someone is lifted into the air. Normally it will involve a flyer, a base and a spotter. The flyer is the person that is being lifted in the air, the base is the person doing the lifting or supporting with parts of their body (typically the feet and hands) and the spotter’s role is to ensure the safety of the flyer and base (normally focusing on the flyer). The spotter stays alert at all times, ready to intervene if the flow, trick or combination goes wrong, even catching the flyer themselves, if necessary. The spotter is also able to have an outside view of the movement so is able to offer feedback.

Acro Yoga is globally popular and you can find wonderful teachers, practitioners and communities of AcroYoga in many cities around the world.

For Beginners

Learning Acro Yoga takes some level of strength, flexibility and technique. It’s also important to build trust and communication with your partner(s) to be able to have a safe and effective practice.

If you’re a beginner and you’re looking to start, the best thing is to find a teacher and/or community that can guide you on where to begin. You don’t need to have a partner to start, you can begin by learning some foundational movements and techniques alone so you’re able to join in more when you do jam with others. Handstands are great to practice because they are very useful in Acro Yoga (as you can do handstands on other people.) You can also find good teachers to help you know where to start online.

Here are our suggestions of easy balances to get you started. We have included some that you can alone at home or with a partner.

Acrobalance or Hand to Hand?

There are many different types of partner acro. Acrobalance is often described as the integration between dance forms and partner acrobatics. It normally involves more static poses rather than dynamic. It can be performed with the base lying on the floor or standing up. In Acro Yoga, it almost always involves the base lying down on the floor, this is called L-basing. Acrobalance often includes more standing poses, where the base is lifting the flyer in the air or the flyer is doing a balance on the base. Another popular term for acrobalance is adagio. Both Adagio and Acrobalance tend to involve combinations of fluid movement with smooth and controlled transitions.

Hand to hand is another term that many people recognise as part of the partner acrobatics realm. However, most people tend to think it means just one specific move where the flyer does a handstand on the base’s hands. This move is called hand to hand but in most circus schools around the world, hand to hand is often used as the main term that describes partner acro, the discipline itself.

Hand to hand comes from circus and sports acrobatics in gymnastics. It tends to involve a higher degree or level of technical skill than acrobalance and includes a lot more dynamic and release moves (when the flyer loses all physical contact with the base).

Both Acrobalance and hand to hand can involve a high technical level, which comes with an element of danger, even though acrobalance doesn’t involve many dynamic moves. They both involve working at a height, which increases the risk of injury from falling, so it’s important to use spotters when learning. It’s also integral to learn in a safe environment with professional coaches, well-designed progressions for the moves and safety equipment such as mats.

Most people that do hand to hand, study it full time in a circus school or by doing sports acro in gymnastics and/or spend their lives specialising in that one discipline. Many of the circus coaches that teach it have come from a sports acrobatics background. To find out more about sports acro, you can read more here.