What is Family AcroYoga?

So, what is acro-yoga family? You can Google this phrase or look over social media and find tons of images of semi-professional and professional acrobats and contortionists doing all sorts of amazing things. And yes, acro-yoga is that. It is so much more at the same time. This is a community-based practice that builds trust and connection, and it's a wonderful way that you can build strength and relaxation into your life with your child.

Sometimes we'll be working in twos, so partner yoga, supported shavasana, things that you can do with your baby, and sometimes we'll work in groups of three that would use a base, a flyer, and a spotter, because we want to make sure that you're always really, really safe, and sometimes a 2-0 doesn't necessarily do that, and that's when we make it a trio. One of the most important aspects of acro-yoga is how we cultivate a community and a container of trust. The sequences that I've offered during this season are designed so that you and your child can incrementally, progressively build in both your awareness as well as your skills together about what we're doing, and it's really, really, really essential that when you're practicing these, you allow your child to lead a little bit. So that might be leaving an episode and coming back to it the next day. One of the most important ways that we can learn how to build trust, especially with children, is reading their nonverbal consent.

So if they scrunch their face and turn away, or they push you away, or they start crying, those are really strong ways that they're saying no. And we want you to listen to those things, because that no to you may be a yes to their own body, and that's something that I think we can really enhance in terms of listening to our own intuition. So remember that a no in this position might be a yes to someone else's body, and that could be a young child or an older child, or maybe even your partner. I don't really know. And other ways that we can build a community, a container of trust, is by using a really special word in acro-yoga that is simply down.

So letting the children know, letting your partners in play know that down is always a word that we listen to, and it's not a conversation. It's not an argument. If a flyer is flying, a base is basing, anybody is working together, and anyone in that trio says down, we bring the flyer's feet to the floor, and it's an opportunity to build that shape back up together. More and more scientific research is showing us the actual quantitative and qualitative benefits of both yoga and mindfulness in the world. Acro-yoga cultivates those things while also bringing you into partnership with the smallest and maybe most influential community in your life, your family.

A couple of the different ways that we will look at this and focus on this is when we simply bring our hands to midline. The bringing together of the right and the left side at this unique and really imperfectly perfect center can help cultivate a lot of awareness. And for the littlest yogis in our lives, that conscious bringing together towards the midline is an underlying developmental pattern that will help support their crawling and eventually their walking in our full expansion of movement. So it's a pretty amazing thing when we get to practice anjuli mudra or palms together pose together in a few different places. We also have the American Sign Language words of more and together.

So not only do those introduce two really useful signs to you and your family, but they again bring both the right and left side of the body together supporting developmental patterns and a lifetime of free movement. The other aspect that is very essential about this particular practice is the importance of play. So you will notice that I have two little assistants here and I recommend that in addition to the children in your life, you find one or two stuffed animals that you also can work with. Sometimes your child will say no and you still want to do the workout session or you want to try a technique. So if you use one of these stuffed animals that will do exactly what you want them to do, that may be a way that your child builds a little bit of interest.

So you can honor their positive no while you still continue to get in the play and the training that you want to get in and they may come to you after you are using your favorite stuffed animal. And you can even designate that you have an acro yoga stuffed animal in your life that's your play thing. I highly encourage you to do that. So when you are working with your acro yoga stuffed animal and your child is doing whatever else they want to be doing, this is a developmental aspect that we call parallel play. So you're in the same zone, but maybe you're doing something that's a little bit different.

Child-led play is when your child offers you something that they want to be doing that's out of their imagination or maybe something that they pull from one of these episodes. And I encourage you to set aside time in your day so that when they initiate that child-led play, you can say yes. I promise that you are not giving up your authority and that they will actually begin to respect you more if you create some space in your daily schedule and I mean every single day to be able to make eye contact and to listen and to mimic what their offerings are. You'll learn a lot about how you can move and about how they want to play and this initiation will make play and yoga and everything will fuse together in a way that will feel more like a collaborative conversation than anything else. So in acro-yoga family, one of the cornerstones that I think is really, really essential is something that I call compassionate communication.

I've been really, really influenced by the work of Marshall Rosenberg with nonviolent communication. My study with the yoga sutras, particularly Ahimsa, which is nonviolence, and Satya, which is truthfulness, and how all these different things weave together. And so when we talk about compassionate communication, some of the things that I encourage you to try are active listening, so asking a question or watching and observing your child and your job is not to think about what you're going to say. Your job is simply to create a little bit of space where you can listen. This can also be really beneficial in your partnership with older children or an adult partner.

I really, really can't recommend enough how amazing reading or studying nonviolent communication itself can be to understand what your responsibility is in conversation and what you can let go of. As we talked about before, no is a yes to me, and that is important during this particular kind of play. Another word that's essential here is down. And then building in that you're checking in. So you may be having a lot of fun during an acro-yoga sequence, and you want to keep verbally and non-verbally checking in.

Does it look like my child enjoys this? You can ask them a question, give them the opportunity to say yes or no or maybe or down, and again, that will make this more like a collaborative conversation that definitely makes it a lot more fun. So these acro-yoga family sequences are designed so that you and your family don't have to compartmentalize your life, paying a babysitter to get to go to yoga. You together can have fun, strengthen, stretch, make eye contact, and maybe even relax. So some of the essential tips for success that I want to share with you is that you should listen to your body, right?

That's step one. If you are focusing on your self-practice and learning some of these techniques, and you begin to reap the benefits of a little more relaxation, one deeper breath during the day, and a little bit more mindful movement, your child may or may not follow along, but they too will be reaping the benefits of your self-care. Other tips for success that we talked about before, saying no, giving the opportunity to come down, making space for check-ins, making space for active listening, making sure that everybody in the group at all times always feels safe. And if you find yourself at any point getting a little bit frustrated because you are learning new techniques, I encourage you to take a deep breath or take three ohms that can help center and calm both your nervous system as well as that of your child. And in these moments, you are modeling how you deal with stress and frustration and learning, which is really, really powerful.

I don't think that there are bigger lessons that we can give to our children. I'm really excited that you've joined us for ACRO Family, and I look forward to seeing more of you in the coming episodes. I hope you have a beautiful day.