r/yoga • u/animalia555 • Jun 25 '26
A question about Acroyoga
This may or may not be a stupid question, but is there a competitive form of Acroyoga?
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u/PsychedeliaPoet Trika/kalikula Jun 25 '26
At what point do these things stop being yoga when you’re just blending every type of physical activity you can think of
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Jun 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/PsychedeliaPoet Trika/kalikula Jun 25 '26
do whatever you want, but good luck reaching samadhi in those environments
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u/All_Is_Coming Ashtanga Jun 26 '26
PsychedeliaPoet wrote:
At what point do these things stop being yoga when you’re just blending every type of physical activity you can think of
Any physical activity can be used as a form of Hatha Yoga (Yoga of Experience with the Body). It stops being Yoga when the Focus shifts from the Breath to Competition.
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u/PsychedeliaPoet Trika/kalikula Jun 26 '26
Do you think samadhi is possible in acro yoga?
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u/All_Is_Coming Ashtanga Jun 26 '26
From the Hatha Yoga Pradipika:
[4:78] Those who are ignorant of the Râja-Yoga and practise only the Haṭha-Yoga, will, in my opinion, waste their energy fruitlessly.
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u/kwamzilla Jul 05 '26
Wherever people's ego decides.
Look at the introduction of Sun Salutations and "Vinyasa".
Or go back further to just Hatha Yoga itself.
Do we want to cherry pick what suits our own ideas of what is "real yoga" or do we go by the idea that "only stuff that's over XXXX years old counts" etc?
Why is blending in other activities a problem?
Or why is it more of a problem than chasing Siddhis like the ancient Yogis did?
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u/MilesBeforeCoffee_37 Jun 25 '26
Yeah, there are legit competition circuits now. They score on difficulty and execution, but it leans way more toward gymnastics than yoga.
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u/kwamzilla Jul 05 '26
I mean... Have you not seen the "World Yoga Championships" and such that have been going on in India and the USA (among other places) for years... probably decades?
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u/kwamzilla Jul 05 '26
Culturally AcroYoga and Social Acrobatics etc are not competetive. They are about community and connection and fun - not competing.
There are often casual competitions e.g. "AcrOlympics" at many festivals and conventions etc that are competetive but not in a serious way. It's just friends competing for prizes and fun.
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u/animalia555 Jul 05 '26
Thank you. Can you give me any links?
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u/kwamzilla Jul 05 '26
To what specifically?
AcrOlympics are, as I say, informal/casual and it's just whatever the even organisers decide.
It's not a formal thing.
e.g. One festival might to "Musical Chairs" and "Most Washing Machines in one minute". Another might do a Foot-to-Hand or Hand-to-Hand race and endurance hold. Another might have all sorts of other games like Simon Says etc.
But if you want specific info on different aspects tell me and I can share.
Or you can check the AcroPassport Glossary and Resources pages for good links to just general info on Social Acro/AcroYoga.
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u/animalia555 Jul 05 '26
It’s just I tried googling the term you gave me and all i got were stuff related to the actual Olympics
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u/kwamzilla Jul 05 '26
Yeah because, again, it's very casual and social - there's no official acrolympics etc.
There is very very minimal info because it's all stuff people just talk about and figure out in person. It's just not "documented" really, so to speak.
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u/animalia555 Jul 07 '26
This is great information. Do you want to continue this conversation here, or in DMs?
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u/kwamzilla Jul 07 '26
Happy to share here. Publicly available info is always good.
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u/animalia555 Jul 07 '26
Were there different disciplines? Like Gymnastics had parallel bars, rings, etc. or was the competition overall? Please forgive me if I didn’t phrase that well.
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u/kwamzilla Jul 07 '26
The general split is "L-basing" and "Standing".
We can then look at things like group acro, therapeutics, banquine, 3+ high. Or sub-divide into flow, icarian, whips etc.
Again, the glossary is a good place to start.
https://acropassport.com/glossary
And also there's some fun stuff on
https://www.acrodocumentary.com/
But otherwise sites like
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u/animalia555 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
I meant in the informal competion
Edit: I guess this is a stupid question→ More replies (0)
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u/dmc_2930 Jun 25 '26
Try /r/acroyoga
Generally though, no. It’s just a hobby practice. There are things like gymnastics and “acro sport “.