Riding the ocean waves with yoga

If you might be wondering why someone would do yoga on a wobbly surface like water on a stand-up paddle board, then you are not alone.

To some people, it is already difficult to master the yoga poses on solid ground, how about water?

Yoga on a paddle board, popularly known as SUP yoga, has gained traction because of its benefits, including improved balance, strengthening one’s muscles, and the opportunity to enjoy the water while exercising outdoors.

This kind of yoga challenges your strength and balance, as well as training you to float on water.

But this is not why Tamara Britten, a certified yoga instructor living in Kenya, chose to start teaching it.

“When people think of wellness yoga or going on a holiday that involves yoga, they think of India. Others think of Thailand or Bali and, recently, Costa Rica. Yet we have everything in Kenya. We have beautiful destinations, amazing yoga teachers and professionals in all forms of wellness.

“We could be Africa’s number one wellness destination if we market ourselves right, and that’s what I am trying to do,” says Ms Britten as she stages a fallen triangle pose in her home’s swimming pool in Nairobi.

Since incorporating the SUP into her yoga training, Ms Britten has been organising wellness retreats on the Kenyan coast.

“I always start my session lying down because we usually do this on the sea, not in a swimming pool. I was doing this last week at Kilifi Creek. The reason is for people to get used to the water waves first before we move into stretches, then seated poses graduating to standing poses, which are a bit harder because of the balancing and rocking waves,” she explains.

Ms Britten has also taught SUP at the Lamu Festival, Vipingo Ridge and Naivasha.

SUP is an intense abdominal workout, which also improves one’s mobility and agility. Tamara describes it as ‘playful’.

“I mean, it’s playful, isn’t it? The board is moving with the sea, and often, people fall into the water trying to do a yoga sequence, which is part of the fun. When it’s pretty hot, you could use a quick swim and get back on,” Ms Britten chuckles.

This kind of fun exercise works on the pelvis, lower back, hips and stomach muscles. It also tunes one’s mind to focus on each pose.

“It’s an excellent way to engage in joint and stability and increase one’s balance, coordination and proprioception. The water waves add a layer of complexity that challenges one’s equilibrium, making it a great way to increase stability,” she adds.

The trainer says some poses on the land are more challenging than on the board.

“Like the standing poses, something we call tree in yoga or eagle, all the poses that you are standing on one leg, on the board, they are so difficult. Even the arms balances are hard because your fear of falling has been erased. After all, if you fall, you land on water with no harm compared to falling on land. That builds lots of confidence into wanting to perform a sequence,” says Ms Britten.

To spice her SUP classes, she adds other activities from aerial and circus arts, laughter yoga, qigong exercises--a system of coordinated body posture and movement, breathing and meditation and acro-yoga—a combination of yoga and acrobatics.

An avid traveller, Ms Britten has been living in different parts of the world and practising yoga for more than two decades.

“I have been doing yoga for many years, I lived in Thailand for years, I did yoga there, I came back to Kenya, continued my yoga practice with different teachers, but then decided to do a yoga teacher training to become an instructor. I wasn’t necessarily looking to teach yoga, but I wanted to do the teacher training to understand more about the human anatomy and how it works on different parts of the body because that was what I thought would be the next progress in my yoga journey but then I found out I enjoyed teaching more,” she says.

→ [email protected]