So what is Partner, Community & Humandala Yoga anyway?

Hello my love,

Many people ask me what Partner, Community & Humandala Yoga is. Is this another airy-fairy practice that is only suitable for new agers? So I decided to make a video of a class I taught in Hampstead Heath and write a small article to explain it and dispel the superstitions about it.

So here it goes…

Partner, Community or Humandala Yoga is a new generation of yoga which integrates the principles of yoga in a very practical way, where an individual can simultaneously learn to connect to oneself and one another.

So what is the difference between Partner, Community & Humandala Yoga?

Essentially, both Partner & Humandala Yoga are types of Community Yoga, as they both bring people together and help build healthy connections between people. In Partner Yoga people are doing yoga poses in pairs whereas in Humandala Yoga, yoga poses are done in a circle, hence creating human-mandalas. Humandalas are shapes that we make with our connected bodies. It is a playful group activity which looks beautiful too and has much community-creating potential. Often Partner Yoga classes incorporate Humandala Yoga as they expand our awareness from ‘me’ to ‘you’ to ‘we’ to ‘us’. Humandalas bring people together and help to quench this aesthetic thirst for human art and beauty. To avoid confusion, for the rest of this article, I will refer to these new types of Yoga as Partner Yoga only.

The most apparent difference between individual yoga practise and these new types of yoga is a component of touch. In Partner Yoga we touch and are touched by others. We use traction and leverage, we stretch further than usual and balance in ways we could not balance on our own.
Partner Yoga classes are relaxed and fun places to experience trust, communion and connection. After all, it is more fun to do things together. So why not to practise yoga and meditation together AND in this new and fun way?

In general, in our modern day to day life, we have more than enough situations where we are expected or required to do what we SHOULD be doing. I believe that we need to do more things that we FEEL GOOD doing, those things that connect us to our natural state of wonder and joy.
In Partner Yoga one learns to give and receive. After all, if you support a person to get a really good whole hearted stretch you can reasonably expect to receive a really yummy stretch in return. Simple! Often Partner Yoga is spiced up with some basic feel good Acro-Yoga, Thai Massage and really funky music.

Partner Yoga is great for people of all ages, from children to old age. It is great for couples, friends and strangers. One doesn’t need a partner to come to a Partner Yoga class. People pair up as they come, and often rotate partners during the class. It is awesome for families to strengthen the bonds between parents and children, while ALL members of the family can support each other while having fun. It is great as a corporate yoga too, as a team building exercise which also acts as an icebraeaker, bringing people together at different events.

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. ~ Plato

Love,
Ieva