Surfing and Yoga: Better Together
We designed our signature Bodhi Sessions Adult Surf + Yoga camps after five years of being in business and teaching countless guests surfing and yoga. We noticed that they benefitted so greatly from doing the two simultaneously. We knew that if we could ensure that guests participated in five surf lessons and five yoga classes, we would be able to have the time and opportunity to really teach them, help them build strong foundations, and impart the many valuable lessons to be learned both on the mat and in the ocean. We highly encourage you to try both and commit to doing the full week (or two!) of Bodhi Sessions.
How Yoga Can Benefit the Process of Learning to Surf
There isn't much in life, physical or mental, that yoga doesn't enhance. For one thing, it has amazing physical and physiological benefits, with practitioners seeing an increase in strength, flexibility, stamina, and balance. Even more valuable are its mental and spiritual benefits. The true, ancient yoga practice was actually much more mental than physical, and highlighted a great many "golden rules" in such a way that was more about self-reflection than self-reproach.
How Surfing Can Benefit Your Yoga Practice
There are many lessons to be learned in nature, and the ocean itself is a veritable classroom when it comes to aggregating knowledge. Since the process of learning to surf has everything to do with being in the ocean, harnessing its power, and learning to let go, its lessons translate greatly to life. There are several benefits that relate directly to your yoga practice (which is actually designed to be more mental than physical), and most relate to the fact that surfing is the perfect place to put what you've learned on the mat into action in an uncontrollable environment.
5 Benefits of Yoga for Surfing
Physical Conditioning
Upper body and core strength, balance, flexibility, and body awareness - all of these are very beneficial, if not outright necessary, for surfing - and incredibly helpful to the learning process
Repetition to Form Muscle Memory
Yoga is about repeating the same movements over and over, and training your body and mind to understand how small movements and adjustments can change everything about the pose - surfing is the same in that way
Breathing
The main focus of the physical yoga practice is actually the breath, being conscious of it, controlling it, and ultimately training it - an excellent benefit to anyone who will be in an inhospitable territory (the ocean) doing any kind of aerobic activity.
Mental Strength
Through its constant focus on inner awareness, yoga makes us recognize, harness, and channel the strength of the mind - and since surfing is so very mental, this skill is incredibly valuable, especially in the potential challenging learning phase.
Letting Go
Yoga teaches a lot about letting go, and allowing what is going to happen, to happen - this is an important lesson for those surfing; after all, surfing occurs in an environment and with conditions that humans are unable to control
5 Benefits of Surfing for Yoga
Confronting Your Fears
While it can feel like your fears in yoga are unfounded (they're absolutely not), they almost never feel unfounded with surfing; yet finding the wherewithal to push through and keep going despite a [hopefully healthy] level of fear will reaffirm all you've learned through the yoga philosophy
Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone
For many, the yoga mat is a place of comfort; so when yogis take to the surf, they often find themselves vulnerable, yet it is such a beneficial lesson to learn to adjust expectations, perceptions, and techniques.
Allowing Yourself to Let Go
The ocean is the perfect place to really put the theory of letting go into practice, it is after all, an uncontrollable environment that you must learn to accept and navigate in order to have any kind of success.
Quieting the Mind
In yoga, one of the most difficult tasks is often to quiet the mind, surfing helps its practitioners master this skill because with so much going on, there is really no room for meandering thoughts.
Returning to Nature
Yoga teaches this that we are not outside nature but are rather created from it and are a part of it; when we go into the ocean, we are going back to something primal, something that we have overlooked or even forgotten in this modern age.
The Impact Beyond Our Shores
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Why Choose Us
When it comes to surf and yoga tourism, Bodhi Surf + Yoga is in a class of its own.
Get to know us to find out what sets us apart.
