Oom-nipresent options for yoga in Southeast Texas: Many forms offered by instructors

This article was originally published in The Examiner on Jan. 11, 2018.

By Eleanor Skelton
Staff Writer

If you’re looking for a different kind of exercise this year, aerial yoga might be your thing.

Jillian Fertig started teaching classes at Ternion Athletics in Nederland for those who’ve always wanted to cross Cirque du Soleil stardom off their bucketlist.

Fertig herself only started taking classes at an aerial gym in El Paso about two years ago.

“I had never done it before in my life,” she said. “It’s a different way to build strength.”

“It’s not as hard as it looks,” her workout partner LaTridia Byrd added, balancing several feet in the air.

“It’s kind of uncomfortable at first because the fabric is really tight. For your invert, you’re not going to put it on your butt, but above, right here,” Fertig said, demonstrating how to wrap the silk for support.

“You can do a lot of really cool stretches or suspension,” she said.

When Fertig relocated to Southeast Texas for her new job, she said the closest aerial silks classes she could find online were in Houston.

She noticed Ternion’s high ceilings while looking for a gym and asked the owner if she could bring her silks and hoops. Others working out noticed and the owner asked Fertig if she’d like to teach classes.

“I helped instruct [in El Paso] too on some classes for aerial yoga, so I have all the hammocks and everything,” Fertig said.

Now she’s offering free demo classes on Saturdays.

“Wrap around the outside, inside, put your foot flat like a table top, because you’re going to use that as your step,” Fertig said, showing how to climb several feet into the air on the silks from the ground, squeezing the silk between both feet and using your arms to get a higher grip.

“[Then] the silk will stay in place,” she said. “From there you’ve got to move your arms up [and] you’re going to keep moving your legs up as well at the same time.”

“It seems like you don’t go anywhere, but you just have to keep doing it,” Byrd said. “Whenever you wrap it, [then] you step on it with the other foot. But once you get it, it just clicks.”

If a traditional gym workout isn’t for you, Fertig said, aerial fitness is a different way to stretch out your core and upper body.

“You use all parts of your body to do, to climb, to do the hoop,” she said. “It’s also an art as well, it’s like a fitness art.”

“There’s nothing quite as humbling as climbing a silk and realizing, ‘Wow, this takes a lot of strength.’ I think when people see Cirque du Soleil [they think], ‘It’s so graceful, I want to do that,’” Fertig said. “It’s a lot of work, a lot of conditioning.”

And yoga isn’t just about finding a zen moment like some think, Byrd said.

“It’s crazy because a lot of people love yoga once they get into it,” she said. “They think you just sit and meditate, and that’s not it.”

But for long-time yogis, aerial classes might be a fresh look at the routine.

“Maybe you’re looking to change up your yoga game a little bit. Aerial yoga is a little bit different,” Fertig said. “There’s something exhilarating about being above the ground.”

More yoga options

But if balancing several feet above the ground isn’t for you, there’s more traditional options available.

Melody Butler teaches yoga classes almost as varied as the places she lived growing up.

She was born in Port Arthur, grew up in Groves but also lived in Belize, Arkansas and Missouri before her family moved back to the Southeast Texas in fifth grade. After graduating from Port Neches-Groves High School, she went to Stephens College in Missouri before returning to Southeast Texas yet again in January 2016.

Last summer, she studied yoga in Greece for 16 days where she said she learned more about the meditation and breathwork that she’s brought back to her classes here.

Butler regularly attends workshops in Houston, Dallas and Austin to stay inspired and keep her teaching fresh, she said.

Her yoga practice is eclectic — she offers weekend classes like #BrewYoga on the lawn beside the Neches Brewing Company, yoga on the beach down at Sea Rim State Park, and her children’s classes are sometimes held in the Mid-County Victory Garden behind Shear Madness on Nederland Avenue.

“The thing I hear most frequently is that, ‘I can’t do yoga because I’m not flexible,’” she said, laughing before adding, “That’s the point; that’s why we practice it.”

Butler encouraged newcomers not to feel pressured to fit a stereotype.

Yoga isn’t about being a super athlete, she said, and you don’t have to be an Instagram yogi doing handstand splits on the beach to have a practice.

She teaches regular classes at Exygon, the YMCA in Port Arthur and Ternion Athletics in Nederland as well as Twisted Tots and Twisted Tykes classes for kids at the Groves Activities Building. Butler started the Twisted Tots and Tykes classes in May 2016, adding that Tots is a mommy-and-me class for toddlers ages 1-4 and Tykes is designed for kids ages 4-12.

“It’s really important to me that people understand that there is a type or a style of yoga for absolutely everyone,” she said. “Your age range or fitness level, athleticism, flexibility — that doesn’t hinder you from finding a style that’s appropriate for you. That’s a big part of it, understanding that you don’t have to be scared or intimidated.”

In the last year, Butler has taught spontaneous outdoor classes at Port Neches’ Riverfront Park, Rogers Park, and the New Orleans on Orleans art festival in downtown Beaumont.

The word “yoga” comes from a Sanskrit word that means “to yoke” or “create union,” she said, and she said she believes that encouraging a collective of local businesses makes the community stronger.

“I really want that union,” she said. “I want to build a community and create space and allow people to find others in our community that they can connect to.”

She said she’s adamant about teaching some classes that are donation-based so that anyone can come.

Recently, she said she started exploring yoga tailored for athletes through teaching classes for a Nederland Jiu Jitsu studio and the Lamar State College Port Arthur men’s basketball and ladies’ softball teams as well as a recovery class at a crossfit gym.

Anyone who’s interested in attending her classes can check the schedule at melodybutleryoga.com, subscribe to the events on her Facebook page, or follow her Instagram account @melodybutleryoga.

Chair yoga

Older adults with mobility issues or those with disabilities might feel like doing yoga is out of the question.

But chair yoga is now available at the Hebert Public Library in Port Neches.

The volunteer classes are taught by Carol Juneau, certified chair yoga instructor, according to reference librarian and adult programs coordinator Chelsea Moore.

Moore explained that the class mostly engages in stretching, using straps to help, and while the participants mostly sit down, sometimes they stand up, using the chair as a stabilizer, while essential oils are diffusing in the room for aromatherapy.

Juneau said that chair yoga helps blood circulation, flexibility and improves balance.

“Just about anything you do on the floor, we do on the chair,” Juneau said. “We can modify it.”

“A lot of the people I’ve talked to have really enjoyed it,” Moore said. “It gives them a sense of freedom because they’re able to actually participate in something you usually have to get on the floor for.”

Juneau said she tells her classes that she’s a senior citizen too, not a 20-something who can bend her body “like a pretzel.”

“Listen to your body, do what you can,” she said.

Usually eight to 15 people come every Wednesday at 2 p.m. to the community room for class, Moore said, but once they had a class of 20.

Chair yoga has been offered at the Hebert Library since April 2016, she said.