For surfers, adopting a different mindset to transition from the board to the yoga mat is crucial. Surfing is all about adrenaline—it's fast-paced, challenging, and intense. Yoga, on the other hand, often appears serene and perhaps even a bit dull, which may not initially appeal to extreme surfers.
Yet, as a surfer, you can use yoga as a tool to enhance your surfing performance and endurance. This was the driving inspiration behind my creation of Yoga For Surfers. Yoga improves your motor skills, balance, muscle strength, and control—all essential elements for elevating your surfing abilities. Additionally, it enhances your flexibility and agility, enabling smoother movements on your surfboard and in the waves. Flexible muscles also act as a safeguard against injuries, as they adapt more easily to unexpected motions encountered in the water.
Seven Tips to Build a Regular Yoga Practice
-
Set yourself a goal and make it SMART (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic and Time-bound). For example: For the next 3 months, I will do a series from the Yoga For Surfers book twice a week.
-
Plan with your surf buddy to do yoga together once a week. It's fun & motivating and you can help each other along.
-
Put your yoga mat and tools in plain sight, not behind the couch or in the junk drawer.
-
Choose a set time for yoga that is convenient for you in your week.
-
If once or twice a week doesn't work out. Then don't stop, but lower your requirements. Perhaps once every two weeks or half an hour a week will do. Don't quit!
-
Throw aside your limiting beliefs. (I'm too stiff, I'm too old, my belly gets in the way, it's only for women, I can't do it, blah blah blah). In recent years, I often think of Pippi Longstocking: I've never done it before, so I think I can do it!
-
Yoga is not about performance, it's about the "doing". Accept where you are physically in this moment and start from there. It's all about your own journey and through repetition your body starts to recognize it and you get better.
Connect with Bellatrix
Bellatrix van Wingerden is a dedicated yoga teacher and avid surfer from the Netherlands. She discovered yoga at 19, began teaching at 25, and wrote the book Yoga For Surfers in 2021. Through continuous training and education, she has integrated yoga into her life and passion for surfing, seeing both as avenues for constant growth and self-improvement.
Visit her yoga studio in Ouddorp, the Netherlands at yogastudioouddorp.nl and read her Manduka Yoga Studio Spotlight here.
The book, Yoga For Surfers, is currently available in Dutch and can be found on yogaforsurfers.nl or follow along on Instagram @yoga.forsurfers.
