Q: What is SUP Yoga?
A: SUP Yoga is doing yoga in the sea on a Stand Up Paddleboard. It’s like a regular yoga lesson, but your mat is a SUP Board, and your studio is the sea. Stand Up Paddleboarding has been practiced in Hawaii since the 1940s and started getting popular worldwide in the last 20 years. And SUP Yoga has been gaining popularity over the last 10 years.
Q: How did you start doing SUP Yoga?
A: I’m from the San Francisco Bay area in California and had been casually surfing there for about 10 years before moving to Greece. My favorite surfboard was a 9’6” longboard, which is a lot like a SUP board in terms of size and stability. When I moved to Greece, I was surprised that it was hard to find surfable waves. But as they say “The obstacles don’t block the path. The obstacles are the path…”
I had tried SUP Yoga once in San Francisco and since I was already a yoga teacher, I decided to start doing SUP Yoga in Greece as a way to be back in the water. I started offering SUP Yoga lessons in the summer of 2013 so this is my seventh season teaching SUP Yoga.
Q: What do you think about Greece as a place for SUP Yoga?
A: I can’t think of a better place than Greece for SUP Yoga. 🙂 The water is warm, clean and clear, and the conditions are ideal since the sea is usually pretty flat. If there are waves, they are really gentle. And, unlike California, there are no sharks!
In San Francisco, it’s cold so we do SUP yoga in clothes which meant if you fall in, you are extremely bummed. Here, it is warm and sunny so if you fall in, it’s no problem at all.
SUP Yoga in San Francisco
SUP Yoga in Greece
Q: Where do you do SUP Yoga?
A: We’ve tried lots of locations including Alimos, Schinias, Voula, Vouliagmeni and Varkiza. And last summer, we did a little SUP Yoga during my annual Yoga Holiday in Paros.
Q: Who can do SUP Yoga?
A: Anyone who can swim! My lessons are all-levels which means you don’t need experience in SUP or yoga to participate. I’m a Kundalini Yoga teacher so we use a lot of Kundalini Yoga exercises, and I try to make sure there is something for the full range of abilities—absolute beginners to experienced yogis.