Our postcards from Europe are telling us it’s getting a little chilly over there. We’re afraid over here, our winter sun is keeping our toes nice and toasty – especially with our yoga teachers! Keeping their lessons fresh and energetic are certainly keeping our guests well warmed up for surfing the winter waves. Along with the glowing sunrises, cosy sunsets and winter sun yoga and surf offers, we certainly feel like worlds away from the wintery chills we’ve heard about from arriving guests.
To help you keep yourself warm, we have our top 7 tips for a heat-building yoga session. Just add some wave music and it’ll be like you’re right here with us!
1 – Start with breathing
Start your practice with relaxing and practicing you Ujjayi breath. Focus your mind to your breathing, and start slowly constricting the back of your throat to heat the body with an intentional breath. Allow this to set your intention of a warming practice that will light your inner fire!
Start with some simple heating breaths
2 – Let the sun (salutations) warm you up!
With cold joints and muscles, ease into your practice with a few rounds of sun salutations. Slowly move through a round of sun salutation A, then gather speed and progress to sun salutation B to get your body nice and warm!
Rounds of sun salutation to warm up
3 – Practice planking
The core to sun salutations and vinyasa flows – the high plank position. Find your perfect plank by stacking shoulders over wrists, root your knuckles down and gaze to between your hands. Reach the top of your head forward, press the heels away and draw your belly button to your spine. Then hold it…for 5 long strong breaths. Fire up the arms and core, and maybe take it a step further by throwing in 3 tricep push-ups at the end!
Hold it…
4 – Play with your lunges
From your plank, bring your right foot forward, engage the core and inhale to raise your hands up to find a high lunge. Build a solid foundation with a grounded front foot, hug in your inner thighs and keep your back leg powered up. Draw power between your core and legs to ground down, and hold for 5 breath to find balance. Then heat it up with a little playtime. Maybe find a standing twist by reaching your left hand forward and right hand back for an open arm twist. Even further, reach down and find a twisted extended lunge! Whatever you find, hold for 5 warming breath. Have a play with your balance and twists to heat up the legs and core.
Twist, lunge and play!
5 – Turn inwards with forward folds
Find calming and soothing sensations whilst warming the body with forward folds. Warming up those cold tight hamstrings, make sure your have nice bent knees to begin with, and use blocks to help you fall into the pose. Rest your upper body on your thighs for a comforting hug whilst heating up your hamstrings. You can try these standing up or sitting down – wherever your practice takes you!
Get a hug and heat in the hamstrings
6 – Challenge your balance
With strong muscle warming poses and flows, find your challenging balance and go for it to really turn up the heat. Maybe crow pose calls for you to warm up the core and arms, or maybe the twisted standing Eagle pose that stimulates your circulation and gets the heart pumping. Take your balance to the next level and soon those winter chills will be a distant memory.
Flying high with Crow pose
7 – Get cosy in your Savasana
End your fire-stoking practice with a cosy savasana. Get yourself a bolster, eye pillow, and maybe a nice blanket to cosy down and re-engage your breath.
Cosy down with Savasana
Fancy warming up with some winter sun yoga? Check out our Yoga Surf special offers and we’ll see you over here for a sunset session!