Jasper Johal
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Acro Yoga
🕑 Added 2021-09-16 08:29:31 +0000 UTCStarting with the early 2000s I started to see yogis come to my photo studio in pairs and do acrobatic poses that seemed more circus than yoga. The most skilled ones were actually circus people who had taken up yoga.
Though I had photographed some partner photos similar to this as early as the late 1990s, after the turn of the millennium I started to hear a new term, “acroyoga”. This particular photo was taken 12 years ago. These two were students studying at the Cirque school in Montreal. They were in California for the summer break and we ended up getting together to create some cool images.
Over time Acroyoga has been codified into a coherent system of movement. Poses have names now, like “flying bird”, “bird on one foot”, “black bird”, “whale”, “throne”, “folded leaf” etc. Why so many “bird” names? Well, the person on top is called the “flyer”. (One on the bottom is called the “base”.)
Back when we shot this, we were not using names. We would just put on the music and improvise.
