. Here's my first ever podcast as promised! It's an interview with Lex Peters, a wonderful hooper who teaches acrobatic yoga in Philly. Our talk is transcribed below if you'd prefer it that way.
What is acrobatic yoga and how is it different from Acro-yoga?
Acrobatic yoga focuses on the acrobatics. Myself and three other coaches - my coaches are the women that I collaborate with, they are my 'flyers' - we have a very different approach to the sport. One is the terms that we use. Since we're all ex-gymnasts and dancers and capoeristas, it was important for us to maintain very clear language. We couldn't use any terminology that would seem to obfuscate what we were doing and the truth is, to try to name each and every move was the most monumental thing ever. And it would just become the most abstract, most unclear thing you could ever experience because the names would just not make sense anymore. So we just chose to stick to terms that were readily available and utilize English language. So, the language is different, first off.
Second, the alignment that we use is very much gymnastics, dance and acrobatics alignment. We frown upon the flexed feet, bent legs, unless it's a very specific move, other than that we never point of bent knees. Those things we just never do. It doesn't even make sense to us. So we use very, very, very, very rigid gymnastics, ballet and acrobats alignment. If you look at us you can see that right away.
Are there any other differences?
We move a lot. If you look at the acrobatic yoga and you compare it to with a lot of acro-yoga, they don't move as much as we do. We like to move a lot. And it's not to say it's a fault or a limitation of acro-yoga, it's just not something that you see a lot of. And I guess it's safe to say we have ADD.
What about the sharing of acrobatic yoga?
Information that we share, this is another place that we differ, is that we don't care too much for keeping it locked away so we have done a lot of sharing.
You have made some free tutorials. Where can I find them online?
How did you find acrobatic yoga?
In the summer of 2009 I got heavily interested in object manipulation, particularly the contact staff. I saw a man name Lee Majors do it who's kind of like, a very influential Burning Man person here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And I modeled that behavior off him. I said, you know what if Lee does it, I'm gonna try it too. And being naturally competitive, I'm going to really, really get into it, you know, and be the best I can.
So what happened is that I just got really focused on it and I was on the internet one day looking for tutorials. And then I see some people doing the sport where, you know, people are on their feet and they're moving them around and stuff and I was like, confused, for like three, four months. I was like what is this sport, I don't know how you spell it. Is it acro-space-yoga, is it acro-dash-yoga, you know, is it capital-A-acro-capital-Y-yoga, all put together you know, concatenated, I didn't know. But all I know was that I was a little confused and then I figured out it's just acro-yoga.
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What happened next?
From there it just took off, you know, it was easy to reverse-engineer the sport because it was so simple to me. Well look at it, it looks like you're just spotting a person, you know. And being a coach in gymnastics and a coach in adult gymnastics and for younger people but mostly for adult gymnastics for the last six years, it was like a joke. I was like, oh my God, you're just spotting each other. So, there you go. I made up my mind that I was going to try to do this because I really wanted to do this. I used to do acrobats back in the last century, well, it's a long time ago and I had to stop because I didn't have a partner anymore, I didn't have the facility to train at, and now I have the most ultimate situation. I have really good partners, and a really good environment to train. So if you ever wanna train, come to Upper Merion School of Dance and Gymnastics Center. We teach acrobatic yoga there on Saturdays.
How long have you practiced acrobatic yoga?
We started in June, 2009, and it's now December, so that would be one year and six months. And we've done a lot in such a short time.
Do you need prior experience in yoga or acrobatics to take up acrobatic yoga?
You need no prior experience. What you do need is a willingness and openness to explore the unknown, a healthy environment that encourages you to push yourself and a willing partner.
Now there are certain things that you can have as experience that can give you a very, very obvious advantage. One is an extensive dance training background. What that does is it helps you, particularly ballet, I can't speak for any other dances because I don't know them that well and coach Christine she's a phenomenal ballet teacher and a practitioner from the early ages of maybe 5 or 4. And what the ballet does it gives you a lot of body alignment training so you get the very nice tight pointed toes, long rigid tightness of holding your body really stiff to execute certain things. And you know, you get the balance training that comes with ballet, standing on hands and things like that, or being upside down, or certain moves that acquire lots of balance will absolutely be more easier for you because you can feel the mechanics of what's going on in the movement.
Coach Erin is a capoerista and her experience is, well first off, Erin is an amazing person because she's just a really athletic woman and she's done very well physically with many activities. Anything like capoera because it teaches you to be upside down, the movement is very demanding so it builds a lot of strength and that will give you a nice advantage. And then, gymnastics. Any gymnastics experience, one year worth of gymnastics experience in the age of like, 8 to 9, you would just be a superstar in acrobatic yoga. Yeah those individuals do have an advantage in many ways and if you have extensive gymnastics experience well then, you can pretty much redefine the sport in any way you want.
Who would you recommend acrobatic yoga to?
Everybody. I think that as long as you're interested in changing your range of motion and increasing your strength then this will do it for ya. If you want to work to train your balance this sport will do it for you. If you have lots of injures but you still want to be athletic and do really, really crazy stuff, this is the perfect sport for you, it beats out shuffleboard. If you're a senior athlete, it beats out shuffleboard. I kid you not, it's the most amazing sport ever. I've had the most amazingly tremendous changes in my body from practicing acrobatic yoga so I recommend it to anyone.
What has acrobatic yoga given you?
Cleavage. I've got chest muscles now. I tried for many years to acquire man chest muscles and it failed. So now I have a summer body I can be proud of because of acrobatic yoga. It's given me the ability to learn how to communicate really well with someone when you work with other people. It's improved that tremendously for me. It has increased my range of motion. It's made me feel really good about myself. It's an ego booster. It makes you feel better because it's physical, in an extreme way because we have pushed it in that manner, and it gives me the excitement and thrill of creativity because we invent so many of our moves. And this is another really important part of why acrobatic yoga and acro-yoga is so different. If you look at our vocabulary, the things we've done, it's insane! We've covered so much stuff. We have invented so many moves, so many sequences, so you know it's really what makes us who we are in particular.
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What else do you enjoy doing?
I'm a big hula hooper. I enjoy hula hooping a lot. I enjoy contact staffing. I love making furniture. I love reading about the world, the news. I love thinking about what makes for great marketing when it comes to acrobatic yoga. I love the business side of trying to figure out how to market and acquire paid gigs for acrobatic yoga performances. Umm.. If I told you anymore I'd have to kill ya. [Suspense horror movie music!]
Is there something you would like to say to all the sweet readers of my blog about anything?
Yes! I would love to let them know that you are a very influential person. You've touched my life in the short bit of time that we spent together and I'm sure that you've probably done that to many other people too because it just happened too easily and too well when we first encountered each other.
Thank you...too sweet... :) Anything else you'd like to finish us off with?
Ok, I am a strong believer in open source. Open source - knowledge belongs to no one. And because of that, that's been a very pivotal driving force behind why I give away acrobatic yoga knowledge as much as I do, as much as we do. The path to self-improvement should not be one of, you know, lack of information or financial funds. That just seems wrong to me. And you know, I'm not a rich person, I by no means can go to yoga events across the country or other pat of the world, I can't subsidize that kind of you know experiences and I don't see why I couldn't be able to acquire the kind of…you know, and develop myself as in the way that I want to. So part of me, doing what I've done so far with acrobatic yoga, revealing as much as I can and sharing as much as I can have a lot to do with me removing those barriers or minimizing those barriers so other people like myself that would want to do this sport and excel at it..So that's something that I.. If I were to be known for anything that would be one thing I want people to know that is a really main, important part of what influences my practice and yeah, without that, it would be something that I would have a hard time with if I couldn't share it with as many people as we have so far.
So death to the guru on the mountain top, far, far away on K2, and you have to pay 10 000 dollars to go see him and buy a guide, let that person know that their time is over and the internet has liberated information. And I only hope that continues to encourage and increase the rate at which we learn as a species. Long live Acrobatic Yoga Motion Design!
I put a link to your website here on my blog, are there other ways to get in touch with you?
Check us out on Facebook, facebook.com/acrobaticyoga and if you're in the area, come check us out, if you wanna learn some really cool stuff and you're adventurous enough, get a partner, go over to our website, review our tutorials, see what you can learn and if you feel so kind, patronize our classes and purchase our complete DVDs, we have four of them so far and we're gonna make more.
Thanks so much Lex for giving us a glimpse into acrobatic yoga and for inspiring us with your positive, robust and radiant sound vibrational presence. Take care everyone and have a good day!
