Healthy Life: Video: Slackline Yoga in Rittenhouse Square: November 16, 2009

We’re all looking for it, all the time: Workouts that don’t feel like workouts, that tone our body and obliterate fat without making it feel like, well, work. Enter slackline yoga, a new workout that’s a hybrid between tightrope walking and yoga. Basically, you do any move you’ve done on the mat on a one-inch nylon rope suspended a few feet off the ground between two trees or cemented poles.

“It works your core, your balance, and it’s fun,” says Jennifer Nehila, whom you may have spotted walking on wire in Rittenhouse Square. “When I’m on the rope, I can’t think of anything else. You really have to concentrate. I love it.”

Nehila learned the basics of slackline from the YogaSlackers, a traveling group credited for developing slackine four years ago, and believes she’s currently the only person practicing slackline in Philadelphia. Though she’s not able to teach classes yet due to insurance issues, she hopes to in the near future. “I work at Lululemon and I’m trying to get them to hold a seminar on slackline soon, so stay tuned,” she promises. For now, she’s more than happy to answer your questions or let you try a few moves if you spot her out and about around the city. “People are always stopping by and trying it out,” says Nehila. “I help them jump on and walk across or try a few poses. Climbers have really taken to it because it helps them work on their balance.”

Want to learn more? Check out yogaslackers.com for an instructional video, a slackline-yoga pose library, and to buy your own slackline.