Summer is well and truly here and on these beautiful sunny days, the last thing many of us want to do is be inside trying to stay fit and flexible. Why not combine a bit of yoga with some stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) – if you can’t motivate yourself to play around with friends there are actually SUP Yoga classes that run on the River Hamble. A friend of mine Lorna runs one, and it’s highly recommended.
But even if you don’t want to join a class which, to be honest, could be a bit of a pfaff you could still practice some of your moves which would be even more challenging on a board then on your mat try some of the simple ones like Downward-facing Dog start by holding the edge of your board and having your feet wide just to keep the balance.
Make sure your feet are parallel and your hands are parallel you can then move your hands into the middle of the board – as with Downward-facing Dog, in any situation you need to focus on the neutral spine position first, so start with the knees bent get your pelvis facing the right direction closing the gap between the thigh and the front of the pelvis and then slowly start to straighten the legs the important thing with Down Dog is to make sure your chest is open, shoulder blades engaged and your lower back is supported by your core to help you stay straight.
There are many other yoga moves that you can do on the water just focus always on neutral spine and on your stabilising muscles so holding your shoulder blades back in together during your knees apart to keep your glutes activated which will help to stabilise you.
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