By EDITOR on February 3, 2012 at 9:14 am
Surfboard Yoga?
By Rebecca Jefferis-Williamson
Strike a yoga pose on a surfboard? If you’re bored with your old yoga routine maybe meditating on a floating paddle board on the flat waters of Mission Bay will help you get your mojo back.
Many yoga enthusiasts are already familiar with yoga in a high temperature setting; what is new, as of June 2011, at the San Diego based Mission Bay Aquatic Center, is a cooler version of yoga: Supyoga. Yoga on a surfboard or a stand up paddle board to be precise.
The stand-up paddle boards serve as a floating mat. The 1-1/2 hour single session is offered several times a week or you can purchase a series of the classes. Some student discounts apply.
The class is comprised of a sequence of yoga poses with meditation time as well.
Kevin Straw, instructional manager, for the Center, noted that stand up paddle board yoga started a couple of years ago.
Anyone tip over? “No one has fallen off yet” said Straw. He further noted that only hands and feet have gotten wet so far.
The age range has included 14-70 year olds wearing either bathing suits or their yoga outfits. Perhaps a wet suit would be in order during colder months.
The Center also recommended that you know how to swim and have some experience using a stand-up paddle board. The brave can just go for it.
Straw was instrumental, with others from the Center, in finding about this version of “new” yoga having first noticed it in other parts of Southern California. He located the yoga instructors and trained them seeing the classes as a “logical step” to offer to San Diegans.
What about rocky waters? Straw pointed out that they will “do the classes closer to shore and it has not happened yet.” Forget about any perfect storm circumstances.
That said the 12 foot long, wide, blue boards with paddles offer up a new version of yoga that combines a view of Mission Bay with what Straw pointed out as a “relaxing, good work out” according to his participants and that they “love it.”
No music is offered but the sounds of the specially trained yoga teachers’ voices and what nature serves up.
Bring your own mantra.
Definitely “new school” yoga!
