SUP Yoga Training Recap - August 2012

I had the best time co-teaching the Paddle Into Fitness SUP Yoga Teacher Training in San Diego! 4 days, 32 hours and 16 new SUP Yoga instructors across the US & Canada! I loved every minute of this journey with them! ♥

We were lucky enough to get a training group full of excited, inspired and dedicated yogis that were ready to take on the SUP Yoga world. This quote just about sums up their awesome energy....

"Life is short, live bold! Be heard, be

you, dream big, take risks, don’t wait.”

- Misty Gibbs

Here is a fun video re-capping our Teacher Training ~

Small-group teaching out on the water....our student, Jill from Piddle Paddle in Kansas City came up with this new hamstring stretch using the paddle to deepen the stretch - feels sooo good!

More small-group teaching - Brittany from Pure Fit Yoga and SUP in southern California leading her student through modified Crescent Lunge pose on the SUP. Keeping the toes tucked is essential here....which everyone learned after taking a few swims! :)

And here is a group shot that we took at the end of Day 4. At this point, everyone was pretty sunburnt, parched and exhausted -- but grateful enough for our time together to smile and laugh our way to the end....

Here is a photo of the 3 of us instructors (Gillian on the left, Kathryn in the middle and me on the right) with our new favorite Canadian yogis! Lacie and Kim came all the way from Alberta, Canada to train with us. They are determined to offer Paddleboard lessons and SUP Yoga (almost!) year-round in Alberta when they return, even in 4mm wetsuits if they have to! One of my favorite memories in Teacher Training was when Lacie was teaching a mock SUP lesson to the group and in the "Water Safety" section, she mentioned that she takes a BEAR whistle out on every SUP outing! Apparently, it's super common to see bears where they live (side note: proper protocol is to stand up tall and open your arms wide over head to intimidate the bear, FYI....) In addition to bears, they also have to deal with class distractions like wolves swimming nearby and the occasional pesky beaver trying to attach onto your board. And here us spoiled Californians were thinking that WIND was such a bummer! ;)

And finally, here is an amazingly beautiful photo of our southern belle, Jessica Taylor. She and her business partner, Emily came out from Savannah, Georgia for our training. They own and operate Blue Water Yoga and SUP teaching classes along the Georgia coastline and brought so much knowledge to our training. They have to teach their classes out in the open ocean, which requires using a bouy system to keep the students together on a line. Some of the other students will need to create the same kind of system for their particular waterways when they return home, so the Blue Water Buoy System was a big hit!

I am so grateful to be a part of the SUP Yoga community ~ a collection of yogis who live and breathe beyond the mat and are who forever connected to each other through their love of the ocean.