Air Plane Yoga

What can you do to make your body endure a ten hour flight, where you're supposed to sit down most of the time?

 

 
I tried the following on my 10-hour flight to Thailand:

Before take-off

• I didn't sit down by the gate, but let my body enjoy its last minutes of freedom.
• I tried to be one of the last persons boarding the flight.
• I found a corner with less people, and took the opportunity to do a few well-chosen postures. The lunge pose is excellent since it stretches the hip-benders that get shorter when sitting down for a long time.

During the flight

• I took off my shoes as soon as possible, so that I could sit down in more diverse ways, sometimes with one foot on the seat. Besides, feet don't like shoes anyway.
• A simple twist is easy to do while sitting in your seat. The neigbour that you turn your upper body towwards might wonder whether you have something to say, but just say that it's yoga.
• Unfortunately, I sat by the window, which meant that two persons would have to get out of the way whenever I wanted to stretch my legs. When I got up, I therefore stayed up a little longer, and actually took a little stroll along the aisles.
• While there was still daylight and most asanas would have made me stand out a lot from the crowd, I chose smaller postures, like shoulder stretches.
• When darkness had conquered the cabin, I dared a few other postures, like the triangle pose and squatting down.

By the way, this air plane yoga gave me a few ideas for office yoga. Any of my colleagues at Nordea reading this? Rejoice - within the month you'll most certainly be involved in my office yoga plans!