Steel Mace Vinyasa Yoga
Unleash your inner warrior and reveal your primal instincts within, with Steel Mace Vinyasa Yoga…coming to the UK soon!
Reading time: 4-5 minutes
There’s nothing quite like Steel Mace Vinyasa Yoga! Gripping the mace immediately connects you to the ancient wisdom, strength and resilience of our ancestors for whom the mace (or club) was an integral, everyday tool. The weight of the mace loads your asana and you feel like a warrior.
Which might explain why yogi, entrepreneur and mother of three Summer Huntington has founded this fusion — she’s absolutely a warrior.
Her interest in human movement and performance began with a Master’s in Kinesiology and work as a private trainer and yoga instructor on the Upper East side of New York City, where she first began merging Steel Mace and Kinesiology.
With extensive study under Scott Sonnon, founder of TACFIT, she developed the first Clubbell Yoga programme, and a global audience quickly followed. After leaving TACFIT, Huntington owned and managed the world’s only Steel Mace Vinyasa studio and has trained a steady flow of yoga teachers in the Yoga Alliance-certified Steel Mace Vinyasa Method in the years since.
So, what is it about Steel Mace Vinyasa?
Lately, many recognisable yoga teachers have started lifting weights in order to complete their physical fitness routine. You may not consider yoga your physical fitness routine, but if yoga is your sole physical activity then essentially, it is.
This is why dedicated yoga practitioners run the risk of becoming overspecialised in their ‘sport’ of yoga. The body adapts to the load placed upon it, and the majority of the standing ‘power poses’ may not be adequate for staying functionally fit, maintaining (or increasing) lean muscle mass or providing enough diversity in load bearing poses to elicit a training effect.
While a typical western vinyasa yoga class may offer core conditioning, repetitions of ‘chataranga’ or inversions and arm balances as the strength and conditioning component, practicing yoga alone may not not always be a complete training system.
Steel Mace Vinyasa offers such a system due to the kinesiology principle Post Activation Potentiation (or PAP) — which means that the muscles store the contractile history of the ‘loaded asana’, when the load is removed there is a notable increase in power, motor unit recruitment and proprioception in the unloaded asana.
The Steel Mace Vinyasa practice can be used to drastically increase strength in the glutes, lats, shoulders and core, without compromising mobility — it is a comprehensive cross-training tool for the yoga athlete of all ages who want to maintain or build strength and mobility while staying injury free.
Steel Mace benefits includes:
- Combating hypermobility by bringing more stability to your system.
- Improving your glute strength — many yoga practitioners have weak glutes.
- Accessing the innate knowledge of this type of movement.
In addition, practicing Steel Mace Vinyasa Yoga allows you to access the flow state — a form of peak performance that allows for total immersion in an activity — a benefit that serves Huntington and her growing family and business well!
Huntington has a fully-booked schedule of 1:1 clients, plans and leads a robust calendar of workshops, retreats and teacher trainings worldwide, and is founder of the Flow Coach Accelerator which teaches other creators how to build thriving businesses — she’s also a prolific digital content creator.
“I train like a warrior at least three days a week— usually in my living room with my kids climbing all over the place, but my personal practice is absolutely my foundation for success,” she says.
“Operating from a flow state builds nervous system resilience and reduces stress, which expands my capacity, fuels my creativity and reduces my fear of failure.”
She certainly sounds like a warrior to us.
Watch this space: Steel Mace Vinyasa is coming to the UK later in 2025! Visit: flowshala.com/workshops
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
