From Yoga Props to Suspension.
At Pink Namaste, we're fascinated by the way yoga continues to evolve.
It is a practice deeply connected to tradition, yet one that has never stood still. Across generations, practitioners have explored different ways to support the body, deepen movement and experience familiar postures from a new perspective.
Aerial Yoga is a wonderful example of that evolution.
The hammock may feel like a thoroughly modern addition to yoga, but the idea behind it — using support to help the body explore movement, alignment and gravity — has much older roots.
And for us, with our own connection to Mysore and our love of the hammock, it's a story that feels particularly close to home.
The Story of Aerial Yoga Begins Long Before the Yoga Hammock
For centuries, yoga traditions have used ropes, straps and other props to support the body, explore alignment and experience inversions in new ways. The idea of using support to help the body move, stretch and suspend itself became an important inspiration for modern Aerial practices.
When the Ground Isn't Enough
In the early 2000s, yoga practitioners began experimenting with suspended systems specifically designed for movement.
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2001 — Antonio Cardenas developed the Yoga Swing, later known as the Omni Gym.
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2003 — The Gravotonics Yoga Swing emerged in Bali.
These early systems opened up new possibilities, allowing practitioners to explore movement beyond the limitations of the floor.
From Swing to Practice
As suspension systems developed, practitioners began combining them with familiar yoga movements.
In New York, Christopher Harrison developed AntiGravity, bringing aerial movement into the worlds of fitness and yoga. In 2006, Michelle Dortignac developed Unnata Aerial Yoga, introducing another distinct approach to practising yoga with the support of a hammock.
Different methods began to emerge, but they shared something fundamental: a new relationship with gravity. Yoga was no longer limited to the floor.
A New Kind of Support
The hammock changes what is possible.
It can hold, support and suspend the body while allowing movement in three dimensions. It offers assistance in stretches, support during inversions and a completely new way to experience familiar postures.
The hammock becomes more than a prop. It becomes a partner in the practice, helping the body explore movement, space and gravity in ways that traditional floor-based practice cannot.
The Practice Takes Flight
What began with individual practitioners and different suspension systems has gradually developed into distinct Aerial Yoga practice styles around the world.
AntiGravity Yoga, Unnata Aerial Yoga, Fly Yoga, AeroYoga and AIReal Yoga, to name a few, each bring their own interpretation to the practice. Together, these approaches have helped Aerial Yoga become the global practice it is today.
And now, the practice is finding its way back to the roots of yoga itself.
In Mysore, India, the home of modern yoga, the first Aerial Yoga centres are beginning to emerge, bringing a new dimension of movement back to the place where so much of the modern yoga story began.
At Pink Namaste, there is something we love about that sense of a circle completing itself.
A practice inspired by yoga's long tradition of using props and support travelled out into the world, evolved, took flight — and is now finding a place in Mysore itself.
It is also a reminder that honouring tradition doesn't mean standing still. Yoga has always been shaped by the people who practise it: exploring, adapting and finding new ways to understand the relationship between body and mind.
For us, the hammock captures something of that beautifully. It can be a place to move and explore, but also a place to pause, surrender our weight and simply be held.
Perhaps that is what makes Aerial Yoga so compelling — beneath the suspension, the inversions and the freedom of leaving the floor, there is something wonderfully simple at its heart.