Challenging as surfing is, you will be pushed to your limits both mentally and physically.Why not get yourself ready even before hitting the ocean?
Practicing yoga can help you:
Increase your flexibility and range of motion
Improve your body awareness and coordination
Improve your balance and work on your posture
Teach you how to breathe correctly so you can energize your body and relax your mind
Build core strength
Minimize the risk of injury
Move your Body
In order to learn how to surf you first need to learn how to move your body. Developing and incorporating movement practices into your daily life is essential. Without this you are not only slowing down your progress but you are also at risk of injuring yourself.
Build your Practice
It comes as no surprise to hear about top surfers in the world incorporating yoga into their daily lifestyle. Kelly Slater, Sally Fitzgibbons, Stephanie Gilmore, Filipe Toledo, Nikki Van Dijk, Mick Fanning and many others are recognising how yoga and surfing complement each other in numerous ways.
Ride that Wave
If you have never tried surfing, you would be amazed how much strength, focus, flexibility and balance it’s required for paddling out from the shore to actually riding the wave. Whether you are a complete beginner or already mastering the carving 360, yoga can be your great companion to help you progress or minimize risk of injuries.
My Surfing
I first tried surfing 8 years ago. Water is my element, but that wasn’t a love at first sight. Strong waves kept hitting me as we were in a fight where I had no chance of winning. My unbalanced body felt heavy as a rock when I first tried to pop up on my beginner’s foamy surfboard. Failed attempts at trying to ride those first waves made me discover not only new depths of freezing cold water but also a whole bunch of other things I didn’t know about surfing.
Moving to Portugal surely helped to open my heart again to this beautiful activity, but understanding of my body in relation to essential surfing movements and muscle groups that drive those movements not only improved my performance significantly but also got me hooked on surfing the way I’ve never imagined.