Beatrix Montanile probably spends way more time upside down that the average person. Not only is she an accomplished yoga teacher, but she’s also the woman behind the suspension yoga movement in Canada.
As Studio Director of
The Flying Yogi, she is passionate about this “new” model of yoga. It’s still new to us, but Beatrix says that even Hippocrates suspended patients to help with joint and digestive problems. “It’s not a new concept. It has just been forgotten.”
If her glowing skin is any indication of its success, we are in.
How did you start teaching regular old on-the-ground yoga?
I’ve been practicing yoga for almost 29 years now. I had my son and I was trying to find ways to stay fit in the age of Jane Fonda aerobics. I came across a book by Raquel Welsh. It was very easy to follow and I was impressed by her physique. She was 43 at the time and I was much younger. I thought to myself, “Wow, if I could look like that at 43, I want to do that!” I started practicing the poses and it was the first time that I felt really good in my body. I felt transformed.
And years later, you became a teacher yourself.
I was turning more and more to yoga. It was helping me
manage my stress. I had suffered some spinal injuries from horseback riding as a girl. I fractured my C6 vertebrae in my spine, but it was undiagnosed for years. I was told that I had severe bone degeneration. Yoga was one of the things that kept the mobility in my neck when it was starting to seize. I began teaching a class when my teacher didn’t show up. Later, he gave me some of my own classes.
Getting classes without teacher training isn’t common!
I went to India for my teacher training. I ended up wanting to go for a couple of months but I decided to leave LA [where I was living] permanently. I sold everything and it became very real. I bought a ticket not knowing anything about what I was going to do. I went back and forth a few times for a couple of years.
It sounds like you were trusting in the universe! How was your training in India?
There wasn’t a lot of emphasis on anatomy but a lot of emphasis on the
Ayurvedic model and hands-on adjustments. Sometimes it was a little aggressive – certainly not something we practice here. They were really hardcore. They are not about coddling you. They tell you to keep practicing. I was doing lots of hours of yoga a day. It toughened me and it made me have faith in the practice.
When you came back to Toronto, what did you do to start teaching?
I had not been back for 13 years. I started donation-based yoga in the park. I put up some flyers. People actually came!
That’s always a good sign. What made you move your yoga off the mat, into the air?
Suspension has always appealed to me. It started way back in the 80s when inversion boots came out. The idea of suspending sounded like a viable option. I tried the inversion boots and I didn’t like hanging from my ankles. While I was travelling in India, I studied in an Iyengar based school in Goa. They used ropes to suspend from the hips. I liked them, but the ropes cut into the skin. I would suspend in my doorframe, but I didn’t think I could teach anyone to do it. It wasn’t comfortable!
The sling you use now is much more comfortable than ropes?
Absolutely, it has foam and comfortable fabric. I ordered one in 2010. I started to teach myself. I started the first teacher training and the first suspension group classes. I knew it was really revolutionary. You can do just about anything!
What do you love most about suspension yoga?
It offers a lot of inversions that are not normally accessible to occasional yoga practitioners. There is a lot of inverting in yoga. Scientifically, it has been found that inverting stimulates neurotransmitter productivity, which releases the hormones that can
create a balanced mind. It leads to the bliss state that people report when they do a lot of yoga.
Beatrix brings her fair-trade sling on the road and recently hung it up on a cruise vacation. If you want to buy one, or just try out the art of being effortlessly upside down, check out her
website.
We could all do with a little more bliss in our lives!
