With their shared emphasis on breathing, flexibility, balance, and bodily awareness, yoga and surfing are a harmonious duo that go together like peaches and cream.
Yoga serves as the perfect fusion of mindfulness and bodily strength, helping build the core principles essential for surfing: balance, strength and flexibility.
Perfectly encapsulating this ethos, Surf Maroc’s yoga and surf retreat focuses on the power of yoga to enhance your surfing.
Here are my three essential poses for when I want to focus my practice and improve these attributes
Hang in the Balance – Best Yoga Pose to Improve Balance
Balancing poses are a crucial component of any yoga practice, and they play a pivotal role in improving your surfing skills.
Natarajasana or dancer pose perfectly encapsulates the essence of balance. By balancing on one leg, this pose challenges you and promotes inner and outer strength. Remember to keep your shoulders down and away from your ears and avoid locking your standing knee. I find focusing on a single unmoving point helps me maintain my balance.
Strong and Stable – Best Yoga Pose to Build Strength
Surfing demands a strong core, especially when making turns and enhancing your strength and power through yoga will elevate your board game.
Paripurna Navasana or boat pose, is a powerhouse core strengthener.
This abs-olute killer requires you to balance on your tailbone and sitting bones fostering mental and physical focus while promoting overall body awareness. Unlike other poses, boat pose activates your deep abdominal muscles boosting core stability, improving posture, and reducing lower back pain.
Go with the Flow – Best Yoga Pose to Increase Flexibility
Enhancing flexibility is just as vital for surfing, improving range of motion, joint health, and reducing the risk of injury. Building flexibility is a gradual process, so don’t push yourself too hard, too fast.
Parsvottanasana or pyramid pose is a deep forward fold that stretches the hip muscles and hamstrings. With its narrow stance, Pyramid pose cultivates your stability and strength whilst lengthening the spine.
You’ll definitely notice an improvement in your pop-up with this one.
Incorporating these poses into your yoga practice will pay dividends when you head out to the lineup. They’re your secret allies for perfecting your cross-step and nose-riding.
I use them to warm up in my Noserider’s Surf and Sweat Collection before heading straight into the swell, no change necessary.