You might have heard of something called Goat Yoga last year–a form where goats are combined with yoga to connect better with nature. But have you heard of Ganja Yoga yet?
This all-new form of yoga is all about merging two elements, yoga and recreational marijuana, and it’s now becoming quite the rage in certain states in the USA.
In case you’re wondering, Ganja Yoga classes usually have the participants smoking weed before and during the class. The effects of ganja apparently help everything from loosening the muscles to lowering inhibitions.
Ganja Yoga was first introduced by Dee Dussault, a yoga instructor based in San Francisco, California. Dussault started her classes in 2009, but recreational marijuana was not legal in the state back then. With recreational marijuana now legalized in California, Dussault’s classes have gained immense popularity.
“There are anti-inflammatory benefits to cannabis and specifically CBD products can have amazing pain relieving benefits and anti-anxiety, anti-depression benefits,” Dussault told CBS. She believes that this combination of “mindfulness and marijuana” is improving hers students’ health.
Dussault’s classes begin with students trying out cannabis products. “People have the luxury of arriving whenever they want in the first half an hour in what we call the Stoner’s Social,” she said. After this “Stoner’s Social”, the class continues with regular yoga practice, with some breaks for puffs of marijuana.
One of Dussault’s students, Tiffany Marquez, even told CBS that Ganja Yoga helps relieve migraines and actually improves their ability to practice yoga. “It helps to loosen your muscles and it helps lower you inhibitions so you’re more likely to try a different move that maybe before you might have been apprehensive of,” she said.
After the classes, Dussault makes sure that her students have half an hour to sober up. She is currently hoping to expand her classes to more cities. But Dussault isn’t the only one who believes in, and is promoting, Ganja Yoga.
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Similar classes have begun in Massachusetts, Washington, DC, and Colorado. What’s more, a spa in Denver, Colorado, just applied for permission to provide “cannabis infused massages, ganja yoga, and other cannabis-friendly activities to patrons 21 and older”, Mashable reports.
If this spa, called Utopia All Natural Wellness Spa and Lounge, gets the permissions, the owners hope that it will become quite an attraction. Recreational marijuana is currently legal in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine, and Washington DC, but using them outside your homes is subject to additional permissions.