SUP Yoga for Beginners

Want to try SUP yoga this summer but are a little skeptical about your level of nautical yogi skills? Jessica, founder of Flore & Flow, gives you her best advice!

Flore & Flow is an outdoor yoga school based in the Eastern Townships, offering equipment rentals and SUP yoga and fitness classes at Lake Memphremagog (Plage des Cantons) and Lake Brompton (Plage Mckenzie).

Here are a few tips to get you in the right mind set:

1. Leave your ego on the beach

Once you get on the SUP board, even if you practice yoga regularly, you'll notice that everything is different on the water. That's the beauty of SUP yoga: you don't have to take yourself too seriously and everyone is a beginner on the water. You have to tame the postures with a lot of patience and resilience. It is this practice that will bring you a better awareness of your body, your breathing and the present moment. It encourages you to slow down.

2. Too much is like not enough

Sthira: firm, solid, durable.
Sukha: happiness, ease, tranquility.

In the practice of yoga, we try to find the balance between these two poles. The body balance is between effort and relaxation, doing and letting go. You will feel this in the balancing postures: "Tense in the will to hold, one stumbles; too relaxed, not very vigilant, one does not hold either" (Françoise Mazet's commentary on the Yoga-sûtra).

In SUP yoga, all postures become balancing postures. We must therefore learn to find the right balance between letting go and commitment. The trick, again, is to take your time and breathe calmly.

It's not complicated, we should reinvent the saying "when the breath goes, everything goes"!

3. Focus on your belly button

Unlike practicing on a yoga mat, practicing on the water doesn't give you much of a chance if you're misaligned. So it's essential to position your body perfectly so that you're centered on the board. It is excellent to correct the little misalignments that we can have in our practice on land. The trick is to always place the heaviest part of your body (the pelvis or the navel) above the center point of the board (the handle).

If you keep this in mind, it should help you avoid "ploutsch".

Here are 2 short sequences to help you relax:

1. Inhale

Start with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Your navel is above the board handle.

Hollow back. The spine lengthens, the shoulders are free behind. Eyes far ahead.

2. Exhale

Round back. Push in your navel and shoulder blades towards the sky. Chin presses against torax.

Repeat 3-5 times.

3. Inhale

Extend one arm skyward. The hips remain straight, but the upper body opens to the side. Look up to the sky.

4. Exhale

Arm descends, gaze towards the board.

Repeat 3-5 times on each side.

5. Inhale

Extend your right arm forward and your left leg back. Neck in line with spine, gaze towards board.

Hold for 3-5 breaths.

Exhale to release the pose, then switch sides.

6. Child's pose

Move your buttocks back towards your heels. With your forehead resting on the board, relax your arms and shoulders. Focus your attention on the lower back, which expands and relaxes with the movement of the breath.

Take 5-8 deep breaths.

7. Sphynx pose

Lie flat on your stomach on the plank. Place your arms parallel to each other in front of you (elbows slightly in front of shoulders). Feet can be either together or apart (for a gentler version).

Take 5-8 deep breaths.

8. Child's pose

Move your buttocks back towards your heels. With your forehead resting on the board, relax your arms and shoulders. Focus your attention on the lower back, which expands and relaxes with the movement of the breath.

Take 5-8 deep breaths.