Where does Acroyoga end and Acrobatics Begin?

This topic came up in conversation at a festival recently...

And someone was saying how acroyoga is not really acroyoga anymore, but is just becoming more and more pure acrobatics.

It got me thinking, in a general sense of is that true, and is the culture of the practice changing overall?

But also in a personal sense, do I still see my or our own practice as acroyoga or more acrobatics?

So lets put pen to paper and share these thoughts!

Firstly what is acroyoga and what is the difference between acroyoga and acrobatics?

The answer is totally subjective I guess.

Acroyoga got popularised around 20-30 years ago in the states and canada, but specifically acroyoga was trademarked by Acroyoga International and Jason Neemer.

In my experience their version or form of acroyoga is mostly focussed around L-basing acro and some standing, with an almost threeway split and focus between the solar (main acroyoga poses, transitions etc.) acro practice, the L-base therapeutic practice, and thai massage.

In our current experience of travelling and teaching all around the world and visiting multiple acroyoga events, I would say that most people, events and communities are nothing close to a 3rd split, and more like 90% focussed on the solar practice and 5% for therapeutics and 5% for thai massage.

There are some events and communities that prioritise the other parts more, but in general I believe the majority of people doing acroyoga these days, consider the solar pratice as acroyoga.

So I guess on the first point the culture is definitely geared towards the strong part of the practice and doing the cool tricks and skills.

One other aspect is the influence and cross-pollenation of other disciplines, especially circus, cheer leading, dance lifts and sports acrobatics that have all started to influence the acroyoga culture.

This has, in my opinion, definitely caused a shift towards more acrobatics, harder skills, and more standing acro than there probably was some 10 years ago.

This is not to say any of this is bad, it's the evolution of a sport/practice.

The same has happened in yoga way back, it was originally just hatha, then ashtanga, then more variants.

The same for martial arts, they got passed down and then changed, and teachers set up different schools with different philosophies, and so on, you get the idea.

So this is my first main takeaway that there are and can be many different flavours and styles of Acroyoga, and there probably will continue to be more variants appearing in the future.

As for what the main current global culture and trend is, and is it still acroyoga or pure acrobatics, well here's my thoughts:

I think at the lower end of difficulty it's still acroyoga, there is a lot of focus on partnership, communication, therapeutics and that everyone can do both roles and so on.

But as the difficulty increases the practice becomes more skill focussed, and more of a sport/practice that requires dedicated training and embodiment to achieve.

Difficult skills add more risk and danger, and the fun is not always as easy to find alongside hard disciplined training.

In some ways this is the same as other movement disciplines like yoga and martial arts.

Yoga is in theory focussed on the practice, the skills or poses are not the goal, but in reality that sometimes changes and people do become focussed on achieveing a handstand etc.

In martial arts the same thing of increased difficulty happens, it may take a few months to recieve your first belt, but to get from 1st to 2nd dan on a black belt might take 3-6 years or so.

My personal take is that in the case of acroyoga as the level of the practice increases the core elements of what makes acroyoga 'acroyoga' does slightly shift and change, and it feels more acrobatic at the higher end.

Maybe it helps to explain my own view and take...

Personally I find the yoga of acroyoga is in the partnership, the communication, the trust building, and how to work in harmony with another person.

Plus a bit like yoga submitting to the practice, focussing less on achieving particular skills and more on the journey of the practice itself, and the skills will come in time as the result.

I have found as we have increased to more and more difficult skills the focus becomes much more on the body, on understanding the movements, on being stronger or more physically capable etc.

And especially with the influence of other disciplines I mentioned before, there is sometimes very little emphasis on partnership, communication and so on, especially from the circus lineage or cheer lineage (this is just my personal experience).

For that reason it does end up feeling much more acrobatics to me.

I have also found myself leaning more towards this in my personal practice.

For good or bad I sometimes put a lot of focus on the physical element of skills, on one hand it's great because understanding the technique is super important for teaching etc.

But sometimes it becomes so much the focus especially in harder skills that I can lose perspective on the other elements.

This is all to say that I think that the trend in the acroyoga world is to unlock and teach new and harder skills always.

Otherwise as a teacher you are boring or behind the cutting edge.

And there's always comparisson and students see other students doing cool or harder new tricks so everyone wants to chase that.

So I think this trend will continue and at the higher end it becomes more and more acrobatics and less acroyoga.

But I would add this, it doesn't have to be...

There are great teachers and people out there doing difficult skills, but also still keeping the focus on communication, teamwork, finding that harmony with your acro partner and so on.

And this is my current goal, that I want to make sure not to lose sight of this in our teaching and our practice.

Especially when we teach more difficult and technical skills to still keep it acroyoga and not just acrobatics.

This is maybe hard in a single festival workshop where it's very trick focussed.

But certainly in our weekend intensives or training courses, this is what I hope to impart more of and what I hope students take away most of all, not just the tricks.

I'm well aware this is a pretty subjective topic, and what I think is acroyoga, others will view differently.

So I'm curious to hear your take too, if you have an opinion on this feel free to reply and let us know.

Thanks,

Cas