Hang around, it might make you fit

London - It’s Thursday morning and I am hanging upside down like a chimpanzee. My feet are wrapped around two lengths of cord attached to the ceiling and my body gently swings back and forth.

All my body’s tensions are melting away - it’s more relaxing than the warmest bath or strongest massage. A booming voice interrupts my reverie, telling me to put my hands on the floor and lift my body up into a handstand. I can’t do a handstand! The last time I did a handstand, I was ten and had my hair in plaits.

As the instructions come thick and fast, it’s clear I don’t have a choice: “Move your hands together! Push up! Use more stomach energy! Melt your ribs ...”

I have no idea how to “melt” my ribs or use “stomach energy”. Blood is rushing to my head and every bit of my body is shaking with effort. I am concentrating so hard my instructor needs to remind me of one last thing: “Breathe, honey bee, breathe!”

Welcome to anti-gravity yoga - the class where you do your yoga hanging upside down. Otherwise known as “aerial yoga”, “zero-gravity yoga” or “yoga with wings”, it’s the latest, oddest fitness trend to hit Britain from New York (where all weird and wonderful fitness fads are born).

It sounds nuttier than Lady Gaga’s wardrobe - but yoga bunnies can’t get enough of it. Mariah Carey is a fan, and the cast of the Made in Chelsea television series were filmed giving it a go.

It’s the brainchild of Christopher Harrison, the man who co-founded the acrobatic arts troupe Cirque de Soleil. Converts say hanging upside down refreshes the body’s systems, improves blood flow and stretches out the spine.

It’s suitably gentle for beginners, but if you stick with it for long enough you get “abs of steel”. Or so I’m told. I am yet to be convinced I am in possession of any tummy muscles at all.

But maybe doing the lotus position mid-air will help me find them? I decide to find out.

While there are now classes cropping up all around Britain, the first person to bring flying yoga to our shores was Aisha Patterson, who has taught yoga to celebrities including Pamela Anderson and Jerry Hall. She offers me a private session at the swanky Chelsea Club in London.

It’s safe to say I’m scared. I’m not one of those skinny, happy, bendy people who can do weird things with their feet around their ears.

I make a plank of wood look supple and the only part of yoga I have mastered is the bit where you lie under a blanket at the end and take deep breaths in time to plinky-plonky music.

I make this clear to my teacher, who assures me that there is nothing to be scared of.

“You must remember that in life anything is possible,” she says, before announcing that we are “going on a journey”.

Oh dear. This is exactly the kind of language that stops me from going to yoga classes, but my smiling guru persists.

“When I started this 18 months ago, I had no idea how popular it would be, but people love it. The sling supports you and allows you to get into positions, you might not otherwise be able to. It’s particularly good for inversions,” she explains.

She’s lost me. I don’t know what “inversions” are - other than they sound painful.

Aisha explains that they are poses in which your heart is lower than your hips, such as handstands and the downward dog. Apparently these positions cause a rush of blood to the head, which is good for the thyroid and pituitary gland - both in charge of regulating our metabolism and our hormones.

Yogis believe that being upside down keeps you young. And as well as helping you get into the kind of weird and wonderful positions that even Sting would envy, anti-gravity yoga is a hard workout, particularly for your tummy.

“You’re not just stretching, you’re building strength around your core muscles which is good for relieving back pain and flattening your tummy,” says Aisha.

I need all the help I can get, according to my yoga guru, who asks how long I spend sitting at a computer every day.

“A long time,” I say. “Does it show?” “Yes,” she says, before telling me that my posture is bad, my shoulders are hunched and that my bum is “droopy”. Charming!

“But it can all be rectified!” she says with a smile.

Aisha starts me off gently with some stretches and some swaying back and forth on the sling - it feels like being back in the playground.

Before I can protest I’m in positions I would never have thought my body capable of. Next comes the headstand, which is a triumph - if I do say so myself. The fabric around my legs acts as a harness, supporting me so I don’t overbalance.

For a few magical moments my usually ungainly body feels light, elegant and supple. I wonder for half a second if perhaps I’ve missed my calling as a gymnast.

Throughout the class, Aisha reminds me to “engage my stomach muscles” to strengthen my dodgy core and by the end of the session, I am open to the possibility that there might be tummy muscles lurking beneath my doughy middle. Four days later, I am still aware of that. I am in pain.

But amazingly, I was so absorbed in what I was doing that the 45-minute class went in a flash. So yes, as gimmicky as this class might sound, I am sold. Me, my weak core, saggy bum and hunched shoulders are running away to join the yoga circus. - Daily Mail

* Available at The Chelsea Club, Stamford Bridge, Fulham Road SW6 1HS (020 7915 2200 or thechelseaclub.com).

• Video: anti-gravity yoga