5 Yoga Poses For After Surfing
You know that we’re all about yoga and surf here at Still Salty Escape! Whether it’s onsite our retreat center in Northern Nicaragua, online in our growing library, or our international retreats (don’t forget to join us in Portugal this year with Alice Girard!), we love to bring together the healing power of both yoga and surf to help you feel as good as possible in your body.
Why Yoga and Surf?
Both yoga and surf allow us to tap into a flow state, which is a place of total presence and mindful movement. Although surf is an active experience, it is known to be a moving meditation. Yoga asana is the same.
How Do Yoga and Surfing Help One Another?
Both yoga and surfing require breath awareness, lung capacity, balance, strength, and mobility. They work beautifully together in all of these areas.
We strongly suggest you to go through a super simple flow before you surf (Sun Salutations are a great choice!), in order to cultivate more presence in the water.
And afterwards, we strongly suggest to decompress with a few simple stretches to counter the shapes of surfing. Although the options are endless, we picked these top five poses, because we’ve found them to feel the BEST after a full day in the water.
Eagle Arms
When we paddle, we’re in a little backbend. In fact, for all our yogis out there, paddling on the surfboard is quite similar to being in low cobra, only with MORE activation because of the arm involvement.
Backbends mean the back body is activating, and the front body is opening. That means all the muscles in the back body are FIRING in order to maintain the lift of the chest. Typically, this is why so many people are sore when they first start surfing.
So, we want to counter this by SPREADING the shoulders on the back. And what better way to do this than eagle arms!
Eagle arms can be accessed seated, lunging, standing, or balancing. Because this is AFTER a surf, we suggest finding eagle arms seated, so that you have a more passive experience.
Try to focus on drawing your arms away from your face, so that your shoulders spread on your back. To release even more in the back of the heart, let your head and neck hang heavy.
2. Embryo Pose
This is another counter pose to backbends that feels SO good after a big session. Similar to child’s pose, only keeping the hands back by the feet instead of extending them forward.
Keeping the hands by the feet ensures the rounding of the shoulders up and back.
I like to rock my forehead from side to side here to give my head a little massage as well.
If it doesn’t feel good on your knees, then you can place cushions under your knees. Or, decrease the fold by placing a bolster or cushions between your legs to catch your belly.
The less you fold, the less sensation you’ll feel.
3. Rabbit Pose
Rabbit Pose is more easily accessed from Embryo Pose. Tuck your toes, and grab onto your heels with your hands, while you start rocking onto the very top of your head.
This might feel like enough for you, and that’s fine. Stay here.
If you’d like more, keep gripping your heels tightly with your hands while you lift your hips away from your heels. The lift of your hips while holding the heels will spread the low back.
Make sure you’re on the crown on your head, rather than your forehead. And avoid dumping weight into your head and neck, making sure the back of the neck and throat stays elongated and spacious.
4. Rag Doll
Another backbend counter pose! Only this time we’re taking is up notch from seated, and coming to standing, instead.
Separate your feet a little or a lot, either way all 10 toes point forward. Bend your knees generously, this will help your balance, and ensure the fold isn’t too intense.
From here, let the top half of your body hang as heavily as possible over the lower half. Grab your elbows, and take a gentle sway from side to side. Make sure your head and neck are heavy, shaking out your head “yes” and “no.”
Work on bumping the weight forward in your feet, while keeping your heels planted. Switch on your quadriceps, by lifting your kneecaps up towards your hips. This will ensure the hamstrings can relax as they lengthen.
5. Supine Twist
Bringing it back down to the ground for a simple Supine (reclined) Twist, as a new counter for back bending.
There’s TONS of twists to choose from, but let’s keep it gentle to start, shall we?
Start lying flat on your back, then draw your knees into your chest, and open your arms wide with the palms facing the sky.
Let the knees fall over the right side, keeping the shoulders on the mat. If the knees are hanging in space, place a block or a cushion underneath them, or between them for comfort. Gaze skyward, or to the left if it’s comfortable on the neck.
Bring the knees back to center, and twist over the other side in your own time.
These poses are only just the beginning. Feel free to check out Gentle Yoga for Surfers on the Kaylala App if you’d like to go deeper.
Or, better yet, come to one of our retreats! We’ve got you covered.
Hope to see you soon, amigos.
