Creating your own backless chair for yoga poses

We use backless folding chairs in our yoga classes to give support for a variety of poses.  My favorite use for this chair is to do a supported viparita dandasana, or inverted staff pose, over the chair seat (see picture).   This is the reason that yoga chairs have had the backs taken out of them!   

(photo of woman over chair is from the book, "Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health" by B.K.S. Iyengar)

My husband helped me make the chairs at Harmony Yoga:   He banged out the backs with a sledge hammer and I filed the sharp edges down from the welding spots.    The following Youtube video shows a much less "violent" way of taking the backs out.    He uses the same chairs I did -- inexpensive folding chairs from Staples.   You can use other folding chairs as well -- maybe you have an old folding chair at home that could be put to good use this way.

It's not a difficult process, but it does take some time to file and sand the edges.     The man in the video spray paints the chair back afterward to give a more "finished" appearance to the product.