For the pursuit of new experiences, pushing myself beyond my boundaries and just for the fun of it all, I decided to try SUP Yoga while on a trip to Malta (more details and stories about this trip to come).
SUP Yoga is an extremely fun workout that combines your love of water or paddle boarding with a passion for yoga. Taught by the founder Rosita, the class is about an hour long and goes through the yoga basics all while forcing you to really concentrate and use your core in order to keep yourself from flopping off the board and into the water. I admittedly don’t have a passion for yoga but have done it a few times and consider myself to be quite flexible. I also find myself to have relatively good balance or grace so if I do fall, it isn’t a sight. I thought, why not, I should be pretty good at this.
As you can see from my face in the photo above, terror was a REAL emotion.
Rosita starts you off giving a run through about the class, how to get on the board and ways to maintain balance. She is pretty thorough and makes sure you feel comfortable and assured that this is something you can do. I was somewhat convinced in my own abilities but knowing that there was a possibility that I might lose my balance and go face first into the open waters made things more intense. So much so, I opted for a life jacket just because it’s been a while since I last swam and I didn’t want to look foolish falling overboard and following it up with screams because I thought I might drown.
Even with all these thoughts running around, I got on the board. That was relatively easy. Also easy, paddling out to the spot where we were to setup and tether ourselves to a line so we wouldn’t go floating about the sea while doing our downward facing dogs. What wasn’t easy for me as a newbie was tying myself down to the line. I hadn’t realized to put my line on the back of the board where I could easily grab it and instead let it drag behind me. This proved difficult as one of my biggest fears was falling over and trying to get that line at the back of the board might have been a way to lose your balance. Lucky for me, there was an experienced girl in the class who tied me on. Following that, the instructor came by and made sure everyone was secure and that we had enough space for our boards to float about while doing yoga.
Once we were all secure, it was time for class. Rosita had us doing some deep breathing, bridges, stretches, happy baby, and more. All of these moves were items I had done before in yoga classes back in NYC but what made this more difficult was the fact that we had to really use our core to make sure our balance was engaged. One false move and it isn’t “uh oh, I slipped but let me reset.” It’s more like “oh god, I’m in the water. Let me get back on the board and reset with my wet hands and feet making things more slippery and increasing my chances to fall over again.” However I did like that we did have to concentrate so hard on our moves or rather, our balance.
As Rosita pointed out to me after the class, because we are on the water, we have to really leave all our thoughts on the dock. We can’t bring any baggage with us or let our minds wander on to stresses and worries because one, you aren’t suppose to do that in yoga and two, it’s nearly impossible to do when you’re consumed with nailing the moves and not falling over. I certainly am a firm believer of this because I do currently have something that has caused me to think a bit harder than I need to on it and that yoga class literally wiped it clean from my brain until I got on shore.
At the very end of the class, I had a chance to chat with Rosita who has been doing SUP Yoga for over 3 years in Malta (St. Julians). She’s told me that she really has been seeing the enthusiasm for the program pick up out here because not only is it a fun workout but it really builds your core and helps out with balance. She’s trained athletes here in Malta and has also expanded the business to add on a number of new employees. All in all, people are truly digging the class and I am one of them.
I definitely had a great time learning more about SUP Yoga and also having the ability to workout while on vacation but not feel like I was working out. The class is a ton of fun and best of all, Rosita gives you a few minutes after class to just paddle on the boards for fun! This really made my Malta trip one of kind and I highly recommend if you’re looking for something affordable and fun to do.
To hear more about my adventures in Malta, stay tuned and check out my blog for more pictures and stories!