The pool is an ideal place to practice yoga. The supportive environment of water allows participants to explore postures with a greater measure of confidence. Aqua Yoga training specialist, Christa Fairbrother, takes the confidence one step further by introducing yoga basics using the added support of the pool wall. NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS: This is the last regularly scheduled video. We will be shifting content for the next 4 weeks to in-home workouts and AEA approved Online Education to more adequately provide useful content during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Practicing yoga for close to 30 years, Christa is an ERYT-200/ RYT 500 teacher with Yoga Alliance and a certified Yoga for Arthritis Instructor. Living with arthritis, Christa credits her yoga practice for providing her effective pain management skills and success in managing her disease. Aqua yoga has been integral to this journey because it is kind to joints in her body. Aqua Yoga Basics is Christa’s way of showing how easy it is for beginners to start an aqua yoga practice, while still challenging advanced practitioners with movement variations. Being passionate about aqua yoga, Christa wants to see aqua yoga in more communities worldwide.
AQUA YOGA INSPIRATION – THE INTERVIEW
Fitmotivation: What was your inspiration behind creating a Aqua Yoga Basics/Pool Wall?
Christa: I’m passionate about aqua yoga and want to help as many people as possible have access to the practice. By creating a “getting started” video that makes use of the wall, it gives people the basic introduction without needing any gear.
Fitmotivation: How would you describe your approach to yoga in the water?
Christa: For me, living with arthritis, and teaching yoga are integrated. I had arthritis for more than 20 years before I knew about it and had a hard time reconciling everything I'd achieved, and my relative lack of pain, with my joint damage. I gave my life-long yoga practice the credit, since I was only a recreational swimmer, and now I help other people get more comfort in their joints and use the tools of yoga to manage their health. I believe aqua yoga is the best way to do that because it is kind to people's joints and is so accessible. Because of my personal background with arthritis, I work mainly with other people who live with chronic pain. Persistent pain patients are often poorly served by traditional yoga. Traditional yoga encourages putting your body into shapes that may no longer be attainable. Often these classes are working at a pace that is too fast to get in or out of those shapes, or they are going upside down a lot. Working in the water eliminates the need to get up and down from the ground. However, traditional aquatics classes tend to include a lot of bouncing around on the pool floor with long lever limb movements and a lot of hand and arm work amplified with props. My approach to aqua yoga emphasizes knowing where your body is in space to build strength and balance. I combine yoga poses that include a diverse range of modifications with the principles of aquatic exercise to encourage core strength, increase body awareness, and improve people’s balance. I don’t want people just to get a good workout, I want them to function better in their daily lives.
Fitmotivation: What do you hope instructors will take away from this video?
Christa: I hope you’ll be inspired by the practice and see the both the commonalities with what you already offer and the potential this practice offers as a unique discipline. While most pros have tried land yoga classes, I hope this video offers a glimmer of how vastly different yoga in the water can be. Aqua yoga doesn’t have to be relegated to just the cool down and final stretch in a class. I hope this video encourages instructors to learn more about the full spectrum of the discipline.
Fitmotivation extends a big thank you to Christa for sharing her passion and expertise in the practice of aqua yoga. If you are interested in expanding your horizons with more in-depth education, Christa is one of the few providers to offer a certification course in aqua yoga. If you are an aqua enthusiast and want to increase your knowledge about the practice and benefits of aqua yoga, Christa also offers a consumer course. If you are ready to implement a yoga practice in your own pool, she also provides many other affordable poolside resources such as laminated cards that you can prop up and follow along with at your own pace and in your own preferred environment. Stay tuned as Christa is back next month with Aqua Yoga for Arthritis. This video will also include an AEA approved Online Ed course worth 2.0 AEA CECs.