Chair Yoga
Prepare to have your view of Chair Yoga classes challenged
Chair Yoga is a fantastic alternative to floor yoga, as the chair can provide access to poses that some may find hard to reach on the floor. If you think about the chair as a prop rather than a crutch suddenly your perception of the practice changes and it is no longer simply a format for older or less able bodied people.
Whilst Chair Yoga is a great way of practicing yoga for older people, or for people with strains or injuries – your chair can also be used to go further into a pose – maybe using the chair to support a balance so that you can raise your leg higher; maybe finding even more of a stretch for your hamstrings.
Obviously, it is up to a student and the knowledge of where their body is, to how far they wish to go with Chair Yoga. It can be used to enable a gentle practice – or to enhance and move deeper into more challenging poses.
The video here is of Annette Henn teaching a ‘Challenging Chair Yoga’ class. All the students do standard mat-based yoga with us normally, but for this class Annette used the chair as a prop to enable a different kind of practice.
We run occasional chair-based classes and adapt the content depending on the experience and ability of the people in the class. We will also often use chairs as occasional props in a standard yoga class.