Yoga Journal Singapore — December 15, 2017

of standup paddleboarding was born in the

1940s when Waikiki surfers stood on boards

and navigated their way through the waves

with a long paddle. Standup paddleboard yoga

(or SUP yoga, as it’s known to its devotees) is

asana practiced on 10- to 12-foot-long boards

in the most serene of settings: an ocean bay,

a glassy lake, even a slow-moving river. In

recent years, water-loving yogis—some with

board sport experience, like Gibree, some

without—have embraced SUP yoga as a

practice that brings a sense of joyful freedom to

an otherwise earth-bound yoga practice.

“On the water, I have to let go of any

control or wanting to do everything perfectly

because at any moment, the current can

change everything, and I’ll be in the water,”

says Jessica Taylor, a vinyasa teacher who

started her SUP yoga practice in Savanna,

Georgia, where many mornings she’d warm up

by paddling against the current on Richardson

Creek near her home. Over the spring, she

moved to Jacksonville, Florida, where she now

practices at Neptune Beach. “In a studio, I find

myself trying so hard to do everything perfectly

that I forget how fun yoga is. SUP yoga is a

reminder that it’s not so serious.”

Taylor begins her playful practice with a

few grounding asanas like Cat-Cow Pose and

Balasana (Child’s Pose) to get her balance.

Then she moves on to more challenging

standing poses such as Vrksasana (Tree Pose)

and Virabhadrasana I (Warrior Pose I), which

can end in the water if her weight isn’t evenly

distributed front to back or side to side. She

compensates by using a wider stance and

rocking with the waves—and by letting go.

“The worst that can happen is that I fall in

and get back up,” says Taylor, who notes that

not taking yourself too seriously is crucial to

making it fun. In that spirit, she and her SUP

yoga students give each other snaps when

someone goes over.

Rock and Roll

In New England, where Karen Fraser teaches

SUP yoga, the rougher Atlantic waters can turn

practice into a thrill ride. “The craziest day out

was when the waves were chest high,” says

Fraser. “I took a group of fellow instructors

out, and just doing Downward-Facing Dog was

challenging. It was like riding a bucking bull. We

had a lot of laughs.”

It’s a fun practice but with some serious

benefits. Doing yoga on a surface that is

constantly in motion fires up your core

muscles, says Gibree, and strengthens muscles

that aren’t called on in everyday practice. “Even

Plank Pose is more challenging because your

board is moving a little back and forth, and that

added tipsiness activates your core and arms,”

says Gibree. “You definitely feel these tiny

muscles that don’t activate on the ground.”

The challenge is part of the attraction, and

it isn’t just physical, Gibree says. SUP yoga

requires a different quality of focus—and not

just when you’re doing the poses but also

when you’re transitioning between them. For

example, bringing your right foot between your

hands from Downward-Facing Dog to come

into Anjaneyasana (Low Lunge) can sometimes

shift a board a few inches forward—even on

the calmest water. The key, says Gibree, is to

make micromovements, adjusting alignment

and weight distribution as needed and fixing

your gaze on a point along the horizon, on the

shore, or even on an outlying rock or tree.

Your alignment may be different than on

dry land (for greater balance, Taylor turns her

standing foot out in Tree Pose, for example),

but that’s OK. It’s also fine (and even fun!) if

you lose balance altogether and fall overboard,

says Katie Fitzgerald, a yoga teacher who leads

vinyasa classes on a lake marina in the resort

town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. “Falling is just

part of the experience,” she says, and there’s

freedom in fully embracing that. “You let go of

your expectations and judgment, which is what

yoga is all about in the first place: getting out

of the mind and into the heart center. When

I’m teaching, I love seeing the joy on students’

faces when they fall in and get right back up

into a pose. That’s what we are all doing in life.

We fall, whether it’s physically, mentally, or

emotionally, and we get back up and try again.”

At the end of Gibree’s SUP yoga practice,

she takes Savasana (Corpse Pose) on the board,

where she says the perpetual motion translates

to a sense of ease. “I lie there, the ocean gently

rocking me, my hands resting in the water

while the sunshine warms my skin. You really

can’t beat that feeling.”

The beginner-friendly sport

live well

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december 2017 / january 2018

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