A month ago in my home town one of yoga studios organized workshops on aerial yoga which is not present in my city and not much known in whole country. I started to askmy girlfriends if they would like to enroll with me but when I finally found one eager it turned out all the places for the workshops were booked in a just few hours. Ok, I lost this battle, but this could be a great motivation and clue for gym managers, owners and especially those working in yoga studios to dig deeper into this subject.
Beginnings
Aerial yoga is a pretty new thing on fitness market as it came to being just few years ago in New York. Dancer and acrobat, Michelle Dortignac, was a person who found this great extension to traditional yoga. As she was fascinated with yoga itself, she thought about incorporating dance and acrobatics into it. Second most prominent representative of this movement is Christopher Harrison who changed it and made it simpler while naming it antigravity yoga. The antigravity quickly gained popularity first in States and later on in the whole world.
What is it exactly?
As mentioned before, those type of classes are a mix of yoga, fitness, stretching, dance and acrobatics. It’s all about making exercises with the usage of hammockalsocalled a soft trapeze. Hammock is nothing else than a hanging fabric which serves as a support for the body weight. It is made from a very flexible and very durable fabric that can hold up to 400 kg of load. This fabric helps to ease the body, simplifies some exercises, enables deeper stretching and is a support for upside down positions. Having the body suspended few centimeters above the ground releases tension from the muscles and bones.
Why worth trying?
There are numerous reasons why you should start thinking about aerial yoga not in a sense of fad but rather an idea to expand your offer. First of all, aerial yoga is a part of a wider trend called slow fitness. It is all about stretching and relaxation. Another important point is that this type of activities are for people in all ages as no special predispositions or strong muscles are required. If you are looking for ideas to enlarge the number of members and you do not want to focus on a specific customer group then this could be an option for you. Those classes are full of laughter and fun as people ease themselves and get to know their bodies. This is another great selling point as it makes those classes easy to market among existing and new potential members. Another advantage of it is a relatively low cost of hammocks so it does not require a huge investment from your side. Moreover, hammocks do not mess the space and do not create any trouble in fitness rooms to carry other classes. It is extremely easy and fast to roll and pull them up.
Still not convinced? Try to cooperate with a yoga school which carries such classes and try to organize extra workshops with the aerial yoga. You will be able see what is the interest among your members. You can also try to send a newsletter to your customers from PerfectGym management software and ask simple questionnaire to check if there is a need for such an activity in your club.