Horseback Yoga and Laughter Yoga: Looking Past Perceptions

Looking Past Perceptions to Get to the Heart of Trendy Yoga

As you move deeper into your practice, you will find that yoga offers a world of benefits and elements. There are so many yoga styles and various paths you can take with this unique practice.

When we bring to mind yoga styles such as goat yoga, beer yoga, and even naked yoga, many would agree that some yoga styles are unquestionably more unique than others – so unique that these styles have earned the name “trendy.”

So, what makes a yoga style “trendy”? Typically, a yoga practice is considered trendy if it is a variation of yoga that is attention-grabbing in some way. For this reason, many of these yoga styles are criticized as there are yogis who, for understandable reasons, find them bewildering and even disconcerting. At first glance, they can seem like an interpretation of yoga designed for the financial benefit of those who license these amusing ideas.

When we break free from tradition, what happens is we typically lose a little bit of the original intention or purpose of something, so it is up to each of us to decide which yoga styles benefit us the most and are worth practicing. The only way to do this is by transcending the trend – we must learn and experience it for ourselves and dig deeper to find what about each practice connects us more deeply to ourselves or the natural world, despite the name of a yoga style or what someone else might call it. The same holds true for traditional yoga styles.

The beauty of looking past the image a particular yoga class presents to us is that if we give it a chance, we can see that a so-called trendy yoga class was designed for reasons that do not actually stray from the authentic or original principles and benefits that all other yoga styles offer. Two of these yoga styles are growing in popularity, becoming part of today’s yoga landscape: horseback yoga and laughter yoga.

Horseback Yoga

What is horseback yoga?

You aren’t entirely off base if the first fundamental element of yoga you think of when you think of yoga on horseback is balance. Though horseback yoga, also referred to as mounted yoga, equestrian yoga, and cowgirl yoga, requires a lot of balance, it does not require horseback riding experience. Though it will help you maintain balance on these gorgeous 1,300-pound animals, no prior yoga experience is necessary to try horseback yoga. The postures you might practice in a horseback yoga session are beginner-friendly, all-level poses – at least when performed on level ground.

What type of postures are commonly practiced during horseback yoga?

  • Simple breathing exercises
  • Table-top and cat-cow
  • Camel pose
  • Downward dog
  • Hip openers
  • Shoulder stretches
  • Lateral stretches
  • Deep twists
  • Spinal twists
  • Savasana

Who practices horseback yoga, and why should I?

Horseback yoga is open to anyone. Although, it is worth noting that it is a popular practice amongst equestrians who wish to complement their regular training because it enables them to connect better with their horse, which can improve their overall riding performance. The stillness and awareness that horseback yogis must cultivate help equestrians develop better spatial awareness and acceptance of their riding ability and learning curves.

So, what is the benefit of developing a connection with your equine partner for non-equestrian yogis? Well, when you cultivate a deep connection with the horse, you can foster a deeper connection with your inner self. Horses are intuitive animals who can pick up on our emotional energy, becoming a mirror for our inner psyche and emotional state. A horse’s heart, on average, is about ten times the size of ours, and their calming presence can influence us to become calm. They become in sync with their riders to the point where they help bring our energy centers into balance, promoting a healthier life for both the human and the horse.

What are the benefits of horseback yoga?

Horseback yoga is a rewarding experience because it invites you to step out of your comfort zone. Horseback yoga requires you to become almost hyper-aware of everything from your body placement and alignment, breath, and core. Meanwhile, in other yoga practices, it is easy for the mind to wander and lose your sense of centeredness.

Because it will be almost impossible for you to think about anything else while you are balancing on the back of a horse a few feet up in the air, horseback yoga helps you become present. You will not just be going through the motions but tuning into the incredible and gentle support of the horse beneath you. You may find that if you try this style of yoga, you will return to try it again because of the connection you fostered between you and the horse rather than what trendy pose you can try next on their back.

Laughter Yoga

What is laughter yoga?

What comes to mind when you think of laughter yoga? At first, it’s easy to believe that something with a name like this might involve a yoga instructor who stands in front of the class telling jokes as you flow through postures. Yet laughter yoga involves voluntary laughter, meaning the students learn to laugh on their own. The person who created this modern form of yoga understood that you cannot always depend on external influences to make you laugh.

How laughter yoga got its start

Dr. Madan Kataria, a physician from Mumbai, started the laughter yoga movement in 1995 after realizing that he wanted to find what life could offer him apart from his original dreams of being rich and famous. After researching laughter’s health benefits, he realized it was something that should be a part of people’s daily lives. His first laughter club began at a public park with his wife and few people telling jokes and laughing together. Gradually more people would join, and this club led to the development of 5,000 more laughter clubs worldwide.

Kataria wanted to seek the purest form of laughter. He and his wife had practiced yoga for many years, so he started teaching laughter exercises. He began to incorporate deep diaphragmatic breathing and prolonged exhales into his laughter classes. That is when laughter yoga, or Hasya yoga, came to be – “Hasya” being the Sanskrit term for laughter. Kataria aimed to build a community of people who believe in love and laughter, and his exercises are based on something he called “breakthrough technology,” where people can learn to laugh for no reason.

What can I expect in a laughter yoga class or teacher training?

A laughter yoga session will typically begin with standard warm-ups before moving onto a series of deep breaths where you will fill your lungs with air and then release with a big laugh.

The bulk of the class is laughter exercises, involving going around the room to greet each student with eye contact and laughter. At this point, many people feel awkward because their laughter is or feels forced, which Kataria affirms is okay – the body doesn’t recognize the difference between real laughter and fake laughter. The effects and benefits you experience from forced laughter are essentially the same as spontaneous laughter.

Why practice laughter yoga?

There are countless reasons why you might choose to practice laughter yoga because laughter truly is the best medicine. This type of yoga can promote healing, reduce stress and tension, and improve your ability to manage hardship. It will also improve your quality of life by increasing your circulation and energy levels and strengthening your immune system. Kataria describes laughter yoga as a means to prep the mind and body for happiness because when your body chemistry changes, you can experience greater joy.

Apart from the mental and physical body benefits, laughter yoga helps reinforce a sense of playfulness in our lives – something most of us lose sight of after childhood. This is likely because we are more critical or opinionated in what we consider funny once we grow up, meaning we laugh from the mind. Children, on the other hand, laugh from their bodies. These are the two sources of laughter that Kataria demonstrates in his teacher training sessions.

The bottom line on horse yoga and laughter yoga

Yoga is a practice that can open our eyes to much more than we could expect or think possible. Still, sometimes making the most of our practice requires us to first open our minds to the things we didn’t think could transform us – mind, body, and heart. If we can see past our initial judgments or perceptions and try something new, we might come to enjoy yoga styles like horse yoga and laughter yoga for how refreshing, grounding, and awakening they are.
As with anything you do in life, what you put into yoga or want out of it is what you will achieve. Whatever yoga style you choose is up to you, as this is your journey. You can develop your own purpose and intention for practicing, and if that means your overarching goal for yoga is to build a stronger or more stable core, then these two practices certainly have you covered! If your goal for yoga is to evolve continually and experience more opportunities to practice essential yogic principles like non-judgment, consider opening yourself up to more “trendy” yoga classes. You might find the practices that open up your eyes and mind the most are the same ones that open up your heart.

References