The question I get most often isn't about gear. It's some version of: how do I find people to do this with?
Which is fair. AcroYoga has an obvious chicken-and-egg problem — you need people to practise with, and you meet those people by practising. Here's how to break into it.
Where jams actually hide
Acro communities are startlingly bad at being findable. Most don't have a website. Some don't have anything you could call an online presence at all.
Facebook groups. Genuinely the main one, still, in 2026. Search "acroyoga" plus your city. Most local scenes coordinate almost entirely through a Facebook group that looks abandoned but isn't.
WhatsApp groups. Increasingly where the actual scheduling happens, and completely invisible from outside. You get in by meeting one person. That's the whole entry mechanism.
Instagram location and hashtag search. Search your city plus acro. Find someone local who posts, look at who they're tagged with, message one of them. Acro people are unusually welcoming to strangers who ask.
Circus schools and aerial studios. Often host acro jams even when they don't advertise them as such. Call and ask.
Yoga studios. Not the same thing, but the people in a partner-yoga class usually know where the actual jam is.
Parks, on weekends, when it's warm. Genuinely. In a lot of cities the jam is just a group of people in a park at the same time each week. If you see acro happening, walk over. That's how nearly everyone I know started.
What a jam actually is
Worth setting expectations, because "jam" sounds more organised than it is.
A jam is unstructured practice time. No teacher, usually no fee, no curriculum. People show up, warm up, pair off, work on whatever they're working on, rotate partners, and go home. Two to four hours, and people drift in and out.
It is not a class. Nobody will teach you the basics from zero. If you've never done any acro, a class first will make your first jam far less bewildering.
Your first one, realistically
You'll arrive and nobody will greet you, because everyone is mid-conversation with someone. This is not hostility. Acro communities are welcoming but frequently disorganised.
So: walk up and introduce yourself. "Hi, I'm new, is it okay if I join?" You'll get a yes and usually a partner within ten minutes.
Say clearly what you can do and what you'd like to do. "I've done four classes, I mostly fly, I'm working on front bird" gives someone everything they need. Vague answers make it awkward for both of you.
Then warm up on your own. Wrists, shoulders, hips, spine. Don't skip it because you feel self-conscious — everyone else is warming up too.
Etiquette that matters
- Ask before touching anyone. Always, every time, including spotting.
- Ask before joining a pair. They might be deep in something specific.
- Don't offer coaching unless asked. The single most common way newcomers annoy people.
- Spot when asked, and take it seriously. Phone away, eyes on the flyer.
- Say no freely. "Not today, thanks" is completely normal.
- Clean feet, short nails, no strong perfume. You're going to be very close to people.
- Look after the space. If it's a park, take your rubbish. If it's a studio, help stack the mats.
If the vocabulary is new, Acro Lingo 101 will get you through the first session without nodding along blankly.
What to bring
Water, comfortable clothes without zips or buckles, and that's genuinely most of it. A mat or towel if it's outdoors. Nothing else your first time.
Gear comes later and it comes from a real problem, not from wanting to look like a regular. If you base and your lower back is what ends your sessions, that's the point where back support starts mattering — and not before.
If there's genuinely nothing near you: start one
I can be specific about this, because it's what we did in Bali.
A friend of mine owned LeafJuice in Ubud and had a big space underneath the shop that was barely being used. So we cleaned it out, brought in some equipment, and started posting jams there.
The thing that actually made it work wasn't the space — it was consistency. We built a little schedule in Excel and sent it out over WhatsApp. Made a group, added people one at a time. It started as nothing more than a way for a handful of friends to know when everyone was getting together.
Then it grew, and more of us wanted to teach, so classes got added to the schedule — acro, physical therapy workshops, yoga, training and conditioning. A lot of those friends are now professional teachers running their own disciplines. None of that was planned. It came out of a spreadsheet and an underused basement.
These days we run classes and jams at The Yoga Barn, which has been the regular staple, plus whatever venues we can get for close to nothing — Ubud Muay Thai, Bala Bali, Swasti Eco Villa. We've done acro performances and classes at the Supermoon full moon parties at Akasha, which is exactly as good as it sounds.
So if you're looking at an empty map: find one friend with a space, pick a fixed time, make the schedule, and start a group chat. Two people is a jam. Everything else follows from showing up on the same day every week.
Two other options
Travel to a festival. A weekend will teach you more and connect you to more people than months of local practice. Worth the flight. We've written a festival packing guide for when you do.
Train solo in the meantime. More of your ceiling is solo-trainable than you'd think — here's what actually transfers.
The honest bit
The gear side of this is my job, but the community is the actual thing. I've watched people arrive in Bali knowing nobody and leave with friends across a dozen countries, purely because they walked up to strangers and asked to be lifted.
Go to the jam. Introduce yourself. It's the whole practice.
Related reading: L-Basing 101 · 10 beginner AcroYoga poses · Communication and consent in AcroYoga