I signed up for paddleboard yoga at the recent Tree Yoga Retreat, because I have to do something that scares me every day. I mounted the board from the dock and stood and paddled out onto the lake, but I nearly fell in the water as I tried to get on my hands and knees on the board to do yoga. My right hand dipped in, then my left knee then on the diagonal, then my left hand sunk, then another diagonal onto my right knee until all four points wobbled back to balance. I looked like goalie Carey Price who is also from BC, and I made a great save! I was a little wet, but the water was even warmer than the air, so I wasn’t cold, and at least I gave some people a laugh! haha!
Balancing On The Paddleboard
Wendy (AKA Wonder Woman) our yoga teacher, hauled 6 paddleboards and oars into her little car and drove them in on the highway for us to use at Loon Lake. She was great at helping us find our confidence to manouver ourselves on the boards.
Back at the cabin, we had heard the story of the unfortunate logger who fell in the lake 60 years ago and was never found. I will be thinking of him as I do my corpse pose on the board I thought, God rest his soul.
The lake had never seen a power boat, and plants were growing at the bottom of the clear water and there were old tree stumps and rocks, and a few fish. There was a mist rising above the lake and balancing my body on the board with waves gently rocking underneath and listening to the sounds of the light rain and the waterfall flowing nearby was a beautiful experience.
Balancing The Mind
Wendy taught the class as if we were capable of doing something we had never done before, and guided us through the yoga poses. She gave us a lot of confidence on the water, and to my amazement, I soon felt like I was on a big black wet floor standing on a board. Yoga is also about balancing the mind, and to do poses with one hand and one leg in the air, we needed to train our minds to forget that we were on water, and go with the flow of the poses.
After one and a half hours on the boards, which included paddling around the lake while standing “full sail” and “half sail” (on our knees), we got a great workout for the arches of our bare feet, and our knees, legs and core. We also did something new, something that scared us, and had a lot of fun!
And thankfully, we didn't see any loggers.
Picture 1 - Pixabay, Picture 2 - my own.