PARTNER YOGA: A journey together

I first practiced Acro/Partner Yoga a year ago, with my husband, Daniel, and my four-year-old daughter, Ainara, and it was an experience that in all this time, has changed dramatically the communication between us, our career projection, as well as our goals together. Soon you will know how.

For years I was terrified by heights. It all started when I was fifteen years old: I fell down accidentally from the first floor of a house to the ground (it was solid, made of polished rock). This accident caused me a week of a super strong pain in my whole thorax, and moving an impossibility (not even a tiny bit), because the pain would be unbearable if I did. After a week of absolute zero movement (they carried me in their arms to help me go to the toilet or to take a shower), lying down on a couch, I was diagnosed with a severe pneumonia, so I had to spend several nights in the hospital, waiting to recover.

After some days the condition got better and a young body fully recovers relatively easily, but young minds can be very sensitive and equally easy to impact. From this moment on, I experienced vertigo whenever heights were involved. Even looking out through a window filled me with an uncontrolled anxiety during the first two years after the accident.

As the years passed, working a lot in myself to gain spaces that were taken from me by my fear, I conquered some. But then, in the year 2008, Daniel, my husband, and I, decided to start working together in a choreography that would mix contemporary dance and static hand to hand (which is a discipline within the circus arts, in which a couple makes static balancing postures together).

That didn`t go well at all. Being an aerialist, for him it was just a matter of “doing it, training and rehearsing”; but for me it was something that was confronting myself directly with my fear, that I thought, erroneously, had gone away. I lacked of self confidence, of bravery, and he lacked of compassion and understanding. Even though he is a very kind man, but it was just too contrasting how the same thing that for him was such a big passion (the air and the sensation of flying), for me could be at the same time, so absolutely terrifying.

I remember many times trying out different balances: both beginners’ level and intermediate, and stop suddenly full of panic. Sometimes I would even start screaming. Sometimes I would just laugh nervously. Many times my whole body would start to shake or forget everything that was crucial to keep us safe, like pulling my abs in, for example.

It was last year in Mysore, India, where we discovered Partner Yoga. This beautiful practice is part of Yoga Therapy. And for us, it was definitely a healing experience. It brought to our awareness that the most important thing while working with your partner is the loving atmosphere: to take care of each other while practicing; to feel the breathing of your partner so you can breathe together and create harmony together.

With all these amazing thoughts, we took our chance to stop our pushing and rushing ourselves and start feeling each other and the great way our bodies could easily connect in the same energy. And as if it was magic, all the blockage in my mind then suddenly flew away from me, and brought more peace to my inner self…and a new starting point for Daniel and me to reconsider our original plan of performing our hand in hand act together, now with our daughter performing as well.

For us as a couple, it has been a beautiful way to feel ourselves in a perfectly loving, harmonic and caring experience. This has potentiated a fulfilling richness in our relation in a way that cannot be told by words because the experience belongs to the senses: the way we feel each other, the way we can strongly connect with each other. And definitely, it has brought a deep sense of understanding and lovingly receiving each other’s energy, mood and character.

As for my lost fear, I do not miss it. I won`t say that if I try something new I won`t feel a natural nervousness. It is perfectly fine to feel nervous, but you already won the battle if you feel brave enough to do it, after understanding how to. Now I am a braver person, and feel proud of the spaces I have conquered within myself, through the patience and love you create while practicing Partner Yoga. Thanks to this experience, I can trust Daniel to put my whole body in his hands, and know he will do all that he can to protect me. I can trust that I am a stronger person that can overcome whatever fear may cross my path, through breathing, trusting and letting go of any tension in my body and my mind.

Now, each time we practice we have a great time together, trying new ideas full of creativity that bloom during each practice, and that we enjoy letting those ideas flow and grow and take us to new places and experiences with our bodies. Each difficulty we find in the way becomes a goal to conquer, an inspiration to improve our skills together and a boost in our daily energy and motivation.

My invitation to you is to try out Partner Yoga with a beloved one. Choose either your partner, your daughter or son, your mother or father, or a very dear and close friend. You will start a journey together that will enhance your relationship with many positive things. It will take you inward to an inner realm that is beautiful and full of light…and is truly and deeply yours.

Corina Sucre
30 yrs.
Yoga and Pilates Teacher (500 hrs Yoga Alliance Registered School)
Dancer, Choreographer, Circus Artist.
Lives in Hong Kong with her husband and daughter.
Loves to inspire people and to be inspired by them.
[email protected]
[email protected]