Search for an aerial yoga hammock and you mostly get kits: fabric, carabiners, daisy chains, ceiling hardware, most of it promising you’ll be floating in your living room by the weekend. We get why. Aerial yoga is worth wanting. But before you buy anything, it’s worth knowing what it takes to hang a hammock safely in a house, and what you’d get in a class that you won’t get at home.
Quick Summary
You can do aerial yoga at home. A freestanding rig is the safe setup, permanent rigging is a job for a qualified rigger, and you don’t need a tall ceiling, because beginners stay low. What a class adds is an instructor, other people, and help the hammock alone can’t give you.
What is an aerial yoga hammock?
An aerial yoga hammock is a wide loop of fabric hung from an overhead point, low enough that your feet stay near the floor. It holds part of your weight while you move through yoga poses and stretches, so your body can get into positions it can’t quite reach on a mat. Shops also call it an aerial yoga swing, a silk hammock, or yoga silks. They’re all the same thing.
The fabric is nylon tricot, the same material used for aerial silks. The difference is what you do with it. Silks are two open lengths of fabric that you climb. A hammock is a closed loop that holds you, which is why aerial yoga is where we usually send people who aren’t sure about any of this yet.
Can you do aerial yoga at home?
Yes, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. With a good setup, a hammock at home is a real practice, the same way yoga on a mat in your bedroom is a real practice. Some people love the quiet solo version. Some people buy the kit and find out they never touch it after the first week, which is also worth knowing about yourself before you spend the money.
A home hammock and a class do different jobs, so the rest of this post takes both seriously. Setup first, because that’s where home aerial goes wrong.
If you’re setting up at home, do it this way
We teach aerial for a living, and we’d much rather help you hang a hammock safely than watch it done badly. So here’s what we tell people who ask:
- Start with a freestanding rig. They’re sold specifically for aerial hammock, they sit at a manageable height for inside a house, and setting one up doesn’t involve drilling into anything. For home practice, this is what we recommend.
- Bring in a qualified rigger for anything permanent. People do rig from ceilings and beams, and it can be done well. Done well means a qualified rigger looks at the structure, tells you what it can take, and builds the point for you if it can, because a person swinging in a hammock puts stresses on a house that the framing was never designed around. If you’re in Kansas City, get in touch and we’ll connect you with the rigger we trust.
- Skip the shortcuts. That beam across your living room ceiling is probably decorative. Drywall anchors hold pictures, not people. And check every carabiner and strap for a printed weight rating, because we’ve seen hardware with no rating at all turn up in someone’s rig.
- Don’t rig in trees. We do get asked, usually by parents. The answer is no, even for the big healthy-looking one, because you can’t see what’s going on inside a branch.
- You don’t need a tall ceiling. Beginner aerial yoga stays low. You’ll stand up in the hammock sometimes, but you’re rarely higher than a tall person standing on the floor, and most freestanding rigs made for indoor use are under ten feet.
What a class gives you that a home hammock can’t
The hammock supports you wherever it hangs. Rachel McMeachin, who founded Voler in 2007 as Kansas City’s first aerial studio, puts it this way: “you can achieve harder poses in aerial yoga, because the hammock itself offers support. That you can’t get on your own. So it’s like an extra set of hands that will hold you.”
A class hands you the other set. An instructor can see your form from the outside, which you can’t do for yourself, and they’ll lead you into poses you wouldn’t have found or attempted on your own. That guidance is most of what you’re paying for, and it’s the part no kit includes.
The rest of it is less technical and it still matters. You signed up, so you show up. The person in the next hammock is trying the same slightly uncomfortable new thing, so you try it too. And people mostly don’t come alone. Rachel’s first answer to why you’d take a class is simply that it’s fun, and that it’s more fun with friends.
Pull quote: “My friends and I did a weekend date day here and had an absolute blast! If you’re looking for something fun to do, definitely check this place out.” — Jaimie W., Google review (show 5 stars on all reviews)
The first goal in Rachel’s beginner classes is a milestone rather than a pose: going upside down on purpose, as an adult, for the first time, with the hammock holding your hips. Your brain will object for about a second. Our guide to beginner aerial yoga poses walks through what you’d learn on the way there.
At Voler, aerial yoga classes run downstairs in the garden studio, the quieter half of our 1917 church building. Everything is taught low and slow, and most students leave a little surprised at what their body just did.
Frequently asked questions about aerial yoga hammocks
What is the difference between aerial yoga and an aerial hammock?
Aerial yoga is the practice, and the aerial hammock is the equipment. You do aerial yoga in a hammock the way you do mat yoga on a mat. Shops use the two terms almost interchangeably, which is where the confusion comes from. Either search will get you to the same class.
What muscles does an aerial hammock work?
Your core and shoulders do the steady work, along with your grip and the small stabilizing muscles that keep you oriented while the fabric moves. Aerial yoga is more about support and stretch than strength training, but every transition in and out of the hammock works your midsection harder than it looks, and you’ll feel it the next day.
How much ceiling height do you need for aerial yoga at home?
Less than you’d expect. Beginner practice keeps you at standing height or below, and freestanding rigs built for aerial hammock are commonly under ten feet tall, so ordinary ceilings usually work. A qualified rigger can tell you for certain what your space allows.
Do you need experience to take an aerial yoga class?
No. Aerial yoga is the entry point we hand to nervous first-timers, because the hammock carries part of your weight from the first minute. Most of our aerial yoga students walk in with no yoga background and no aerial background.
You can always come hang out in ours first
If a home hammock is what you want, we’d rather help you hang it safely than talk you out of it. But if you’ve never been in one, a class is the cheapest way to find out whether you love this. It costs less than most of the kits in your search results, and nobody ends up with five yards of fabric in a closet.
Classes start at $20, and the hammock is already hung.
Join Us in Class. Beginner-friendly aerial yoga runs weekly in the garden studio.
