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BTS photos of The Pitt team on bring-your-Emmy-to-work day.

5 Training Methods To Improve Your Slacker Skills

Want To Get Better At Slacklining? 5 Training Tips To Get You There

Slacklining is an art form that you must practice in order to advance. It’s a rare case that someone can get on a line for the first time and walk across it. So practice it is! Practice, Practice, Practice. Today I’m going over 5 slackline training methods that have helped me find success on the slackline.

They are useful…

The History of AcroYoga: Origin & Roots

A Brief History of AcroYoga The Origins & Roots of Acrobatic Yoga

Like a tree that grows many beautiful branches, acroyoga has blossomed into many different styles over the years. There may be many branches on each tree, but they all start from the same trunk. Acroyoga is no different, meaning that all the various styles that have taken shape, originate from one trunk. The acroyoga “trunk”is a…

Is Acroyoga For Me?…How Do I Get Started?

What’s Up With AcroYoga? Is this practice for me?

Do you remember how you felt to be a kid playing on the monkey bars or in the jungle gym with your friends? Those feelings of freedom and exploration…of laughter and curiosity?

Do you remember how hard the pull-up bar station was? How great it felt to finally feel your own raw strength when you finally achieved your first pull-up?

I experience a…

Technical Review of Warrior 2 (Virabhadrasana II)

 Warrior 2: From the Ground Up

Warrior 2 is a strong and active yoga posture that helps to channel your inner-warrior. It’s great for building stamina and focus, as well as building ankle, calf, hamstring, quad, core and shoulder strength. However…if done incorrectly it will channel a world of pain into your muscles and joints.

Here is a list of areas to review while practicing your Warrior 2…

Today I’m going to review 5 yoga poses you can train to strengthen your AcroYoga practice. These five yoga poses mimic the body shape needed to execute the AcroYoga postures. So by training the yoga pose, you are strengthening and stretching the body, as well as familiarizing yourself with the necessary body shape and position to progress towards acro.  Below there is a picture of the yoga pose next to the AcroYoga pose so you may see the similarities side by side.

Here’s a quick glance at the yoga poses and the complimentary AcroYoga poses:

 Yoga Poses    >>>    AcroYoga Poses

Locust     →   Bird

1/2 Moon   →    Side Star

Tri-pod Headstand   →    Star

Wide-Legged Standing Forward Fold   →   Super Yogi

Mermaid   →    Mermaid

  Side By Side Review of Postures

Let’s start at the top of the list and work our way down. Taking a side by side look at both poses. Notice how similar the body shapes are to that of the yoga postures, for the flyer. In some cases, such as Mermaid pose, they are practically the same. That’s part of the beauty, by training these yoga poses, you are also preparing yourself for the more advanced partner practice!

In most of the postures (both yoga and AcroYoga) your body is active to some degree. Engaging certain muscles to maintain body alignment is crucial to the overall health of your muscles and joints. Regarding muscle engagement with the complimentary poses, sometimes they are very similar to one another, and sometimes they are not. In this first review you are firing up most of the same muscles in both postures.

Don’t forget to warm up your legs bases!

  1.  Locust (Salabasana)/ Bird

In both these poses you engage the mid to upper back as well as your core. Your hamstrings and quads are firing equally. The chest lifts up towards the sky and you are looking forward. There is also a pushing of the hips into the ground with Locust, the same in Bird, however the ground is a pair of feet. When you do Locust, remember to zip up the legs. Actively draw them together and lift up. One final tip for both poses…draw the shoulders away from the ears as you lift the chest. This will help you be strong and graceful while flying in Bird.

Locust

Bird

  2.  Half Moon (Ardha Chandrasana)/ Side Star

With these two poses, it’s mostly the body shape that’s similar. You’re using your core in both to help maintain that body shape. In Half Moon the weight is on the standing leg making it a balance posture. With Side Star the weight is on the hip, changing the balance completely. Both poses have the hips stacked, and that’s why it’s important to train Half Moon, to train the hip stack. Having that hip stack awareness and muscle engagement consciousness will help you find success in Side Star. Specific alignment and body awareness really helps dial-in both practices.

Half Moon

Side Star

  3. Tri-Pod Headstand (Sirsasana II)/ Star

Both of these poses require not only core engagement but also strong active legs. With the Tri-Pod headstand there’s more weight in the hands than in the Star position, where all the weight is on the shoulders. It’s important you do not put all the weight in your head when you’re doing a Tri-Pod headstand, but instead use your hands to really help support you. Draw your elbows in towards each other, as they will have a tendency to fall out. Training this body position gives you an excellent foundation to approach Star.

Tri-Pod Headstand

Star

  4. Wide-Legged Standing Forward Fold ( Prasarita Padottanasana)/ Super Yogi

These postures are alike in body shape, but differ in muscular engagement. The Wide-Legged Standing Forward Fold uses more leg activity to hold yourself up and pull your chest towards the ground, than Super Yogi does. There is some leg activity in Super Yogi to keep a shelf for your base, but it’s mostly a passive therapeutic flying posture. With the arms overhead and the chest pulling towards the ground, both poses are excellent shoulder and heart openers. Super Yogi is especially relaxing, because you have someone supporting you, rather than holding yourself up. This allows you the opportunity to fully relax into the shoulder and heart opening.

Wide-Legged Forward Fold

Super Yogi

  5. Mermaid (Eka Pada Rajakapotasana )/ Mermaid

Not only are these postures named the same, they are the same body position as well. In the AcroYoga pose, the flyer has to stabilize on a moving ground, aka the bases feet. The yoga pose has a stable non-moving ground, making it a little easier to relax into. Overall both these poses are very similar, they have some subtle differences, but knowledge in the yoga pose easily translates to success in the AcroYoga pose.

Mermaid

Mermaid

  Complimentary Practices

These practices share similar body positions, muscular engagement, and both strengthen the body as well as the mind. The differences accentuate the beauty of each practice. Yoga is more of a personal journey, communicating with yourself, on your mat. AcroYoga is more of a partner journey, communicating with another person, as well as trusting another person. I believe yoga helps to build trust, love and respect for yourself. The personal strength gained through the practice of yoga allows you to be more open and trusting with others in the AcroYoga practice.

Something else that’s cool…you’re not required to know one to practice the other. They are independent in that way, but put together, they build a strong foundation for you to grow and learn on.

  Thanks for reading!

  Peace,

Buddy Thomas

AcroYoga 101

Today I’m going to go over some standard cues you might hear when learning acroyoga technique. These verbal cues are designed to be simple and clear, as well as to instruct an individual into a proper stack. It’s easy to get confused when your upside down and disoriented. Using verbal cues to navigate participants into the correct position is important. These terms allow a base and flyer to communicate effectively to get to a stacked position as quickly as possible. Here is a list off the words I will go over today:

Arch

Hollow

Pike

Straddle

Straddle Pike

Open

Photo by Damien Lamee

These words are neutral and non-threatening, making it easy to receive them as instruction.  This helps create a fun and safe environment for individuals to explore countless body stack positions. So let’s take a look at each of these words one by one. Luckily my roommate @yakovstove was willing to be a model for all the following pictures. I took a picture showing the body position for each term.

  Torso Alignment

Arch, Hollow

Let’s talk about the torso (hip to the shoulder). There are two words that instruct alignment specific to this region. The first word is ARCH (photo 1). The chest and ribs are lifting up towards the sky and away from the spine, creating a curve in the low and mid back. Imagine you are lying back flat on the ground, and I say “arch”. Now you know lift the chest and ribs to the sky. But what if I want you to come out of that and go more towards a flat back again? That brings us to the other word that instructs torso alignment, HOLLOW.

Arch

Hollow

Hollow (photo 2) is the opposite of arch, meaning the chest and ribs are drawing in towards the spine, rather than away from the spine. Engaging the arms helps to activate the core as you hollow the body. Looking at your toes also helps fire up your abs as well as your shoulders. This is an active pose, so it’s great to train on the ground as a warm-up exercise. Hollow is also a great cue to give a flyer when they are inverted with a big arch in their back, and you want them to be more straight up and down.

These are two common words used to encourage torso alignment. Next let’s talk about the hips. These upcoming words are all specific to leg orientation from movement driven with the hip-joint.

  The Hip Joint

Straddle, Pike, Staddle Pike

The cue STRADDLE (photo 1) generally refers to your legs being wider than your hips. Your legs and feet are moving away from the midline of your body laterally. This ‘moving away’ motion with the legs is known as abduction. The opposite motion, bringing your legs towards the midline or across the midline is called adduction.

Next we have PIKE. To pike, simply lay on the ground and raise your legs away from the ground. This means bending at the hips, moving your legs out in front of your body.  This motion of moving your legs out in front of you is known as flexion. The counter movement, bringing your leg back toward the ground to a stacked position under your hips, is called extension.

Straddle

Pike

Now put those last two together and we have STRADDLE PIKE position. This means feet wider than hips and raised of the ground. You can have a wide or narrow straddle in a straddle pike. You can also have your feet several inches off the ground or have your ankles over your hips, creating an L-shape with your body. These are all variations of straddle pike.

Straddle Pike

These are just a few of the basic terms you’ll come across when learning acroyoga technique, but it’s a great place to start. Now when you go check out an acroyoga class you will have a head start on the body cues. Proper bone stacking is key for finding success in your acro practice. The faster you find your stack the better for all parties involved.

Sometimes, less is more. Trying to describe what you want someone else to do with their body can be challenging. These terms simplify the process and take extra words out of the equation. When you familiarize your body with the motions associated with these words, it becomes easier to control and isolate individual body parts. Once you harness this strength and find this control, the possibilities are endless.

  Peace,

Buddy Thomas