Benefits of Combining Surfing + Yoga

Since our inception in 2010, we have been both a surf and yoga school. Why? Well, Bodhi was started by three surfers and a yogini, and, naturally, we wanted to utilize all of our strengths and talents in building our company.

From watching the results play out over and over, we have realized something incredible: surfing and yoga not only go well together, but are a perfect match in every way, and each benefits our guests’ learning of the other.

Surfing and yoga: better together

We designed our Bodhi Sessions surf and yoga camp after five years of being in business and working with countless individuals and groups, some of whom did surfing or yoga on their own, and others who did them together. We noticed that our guests benefitted so greatly from doing the two together; that they learned better, their bodies were more relaxed, and their minds more open. Not only that, we knew that if we could just get our guests to commit to five of each, we would be able to have the time and opportunity to really teach them, help them build strong foundations, and impart the many valuable lessons to be learned both on the mat and in the ocean.

Nowadays, we shy away from single surf lessons or one-time yoga classes, only because we know that we can only teach a fraction of what we believe are the very important basics in a day. So whether you are more strongly interested in one or the other, or are curious about each activity, whether your most pressing desire is either learning to surf or improving your yoga practice — we highly encourage you to try both and commit to doing the full week of Bodhi Sessions.

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How yoga can benefit the process of learning to surf

There isn’t much in life, physical or mental, that yoga doesn’t contribute positively to. For one thing, it has amazing physical and physiological benefits, with practitioners seeing an increase in strength, flexibility, stamina, and balance. Even more valuable are its mental and spiritual benefits. The true, ancient yoga practice was actually much more mental than physical, and highlighted a great many “golden rules” in such a way that was more about self-reflection than self-reproach.

BENEFITS OF A YOGA PRACTICE

5 benefits of yoga for surfing

Physical conditioning

Upper body and core strength, balance, flexibility, and body awareness — all of these are very beneficial, if not outright necessary, for surfing — and incredibly helpful to the learning process

Repetition to form muscle memory

Yoga is about repeating the same movements over and over, and training your body and mind to understand how small movements and adjustments can change everything about the pose — surfing is the same in that way

Breathing

The main focus of the physical yoga practice is actually the breath, being conscious of it, controlling it, and ultimately training it — an excellent benefit to anyone who will be in an inhospitable territory (the ocean) doing any kind of aerobic activity

Mental strength

Through its constant focus on inner awareness, yoga makes us recognize, harness, and channel the strength of the mind — and since surfing is so very mental, this skill is incredibly valuable, especially in the potential challenging learning phase

Letting go

Yoga teaches a lot about letting go, and allowing what is going to happen, to happen — this is an important lesson for those surfing; after all, surfing occurs in an environment and with conditions that humans are unable to control

How surfing can benefit your yoga practice

There are many lessons to be learned in nature, and the ocean itself is a veritable classroom when it comes to aggregating knowledge. Since the process of learning to surf has everything to do with being in the ocean, harnessing its power, and learning to let go, its lessons translate greatly to life. There are several benefits that relate directly to your yoga practice (which is actually designed to be more mental than physical), and most relate to the fact that surfing is the perfect place to put what you’ve learned on the mat into action in an uncontrollable environment.

5 benefits of surfing for yoga

Confronting your fears

While it can feel like your fears in yoga are unfounded (they’re absolutely not), they almost never feel unfounded with surfing; yet finding the wherewithal to push through and keep going despite a [hopefully healthy] level of fear will reaffirm all you’ve learned through the yoga philosophy

Getting out of your comfort zone

For many, the yoga mat is a place of comfort, in that it is consistent and it is actually the practitioner who changes; so when yogis take to the surf, they often find themselves vulnerable in that the environment is always a little different, yet it is such a beneficial lesson to learn to adjust expectations, perceptions, and techniques

Really, truly allowing yourself to let go

The ocean is the perfect place to really put the theory of letting go into practice, it is after all, an uncontrollable environment that you must learn to accept and navigate in order to have any kind of success

Quieting the mind

In yoga, one of the most difficult tasks is often to quiet the mind, surfing helps its practitioners master this skill because with so much going on, there is really no room for meandering thoughts

Getting back to nature

Yoga teaches this (but it’s easy to disregard, especially if you practice indoors), that we are not outside nature but are rather created from it and are a part of it; when we go into the ocean, we are going back to something primal, something that we have overlooked or even forgotten in this modern age

REASONS TO CHOOSE BODHI

When it comes to surf and yoga tourism, Bodhi is in a class of its own.
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