Yoga goes up in the air

Christopher Harrison was in his early 20s when he had a successful career as an international gymnast and competitive athlete. Then he blew out his knees and had them partially reconstructed. With physiotherapy and Pilates, he recovered enough to switch from sports to Broadway dancing.

But his body couldn’t take the punishing eight-shows-aweek schedule. He then started his own outfit but so riddled was his body with injuries that he couldn’t perform the creations he had choreographed. That’s when he went into Ayurvedic therapy in south India and rediscovered the healing power of yoga.

The shift from hard and fast to slow and mindful was not easy, he says. His guru was “ruthless in converting me to being true to the medium in both form and consciousness”. Harrison realised that he would have to physically rechannel his ‘passion’ once again just be to be able to survive!

That’s when the idea working with gravity instead of defying it hit him. What began as an attempt to take pressure off the joints morphed into an astonishingly simple device to fly off into the air instead of tumbling to the ground!

The fusion of the parachute silk hammock with yoga led to the creation of Aerial Yoga, being touted as the latest sensation in the ongoing brand saga of Global Yoga.

The use of ropes and props is not new to traditional yoga. What is novel is the manner in which the hammock’s healing embrace has been turned into a rocking new discipline: this allows even novices to defy gravity like the fabled Past Masters or Flying Siddhas!