Yoga on a paddleboard? It’s making a splash

Posted on 27. Jul, 2010 by admin in Blog

By Jill Radsken

Article Source: Boston Herald

Can you attain bliss on a paddleboard?

Yoga devotees attempted that last week in middle of Schoolhouse Pond in Chatham, where they sought inner – and outer – balance.

“It feels challenging in a different way,” said Haven Fyfe-Kiernan. “You really have to be focused on your core.”

Fyfe-Kiernan, who has been doing yoga for more than a decade, was the most experienced student in a class organized by Adventure Chatham. The Harwich-based company offers lessons in paddleboarding, a surf-meets-kayak sport imported from the West Coast.

“People love it,” said Justin Ladbon, owner of Adventure Chatham. “I’ve rented boards all morning.”

At Schoolhouse Pond, yoga instructor Valerie Twomey led a half-dozen enthusiasts through a two-hour class that balanced poses and breathing with the shifting water underneath their boards.

“It’s my idea of a good time,” said Twomey, who only had one beginner fall into the calm pond. “Anytime you’re on the water it brings a smile.”

Linda Hanway, an easy convert despite her untimely tumble, was grinning from ear to ear.

“I will do this every summer I’m here,” said the Larchmont, N.Y., resident. “It was liberating and challenging and safe, so there was no impact.

“When you fall at my age, you don’t get hurt,” the 52-year-old added.

Hanway’s newbie status was standard. Even Anne-Marie Leahy, who coordinates the yoga classes for Adventure Chatham (and teaches thrice-weekly boot camps) has only been paddleboarding for a few months

“I used to be in sales,” she said. “Now I’m on a board every day.”

Leahy noted that the classes ($75 including rental and delivery, or $25 if you bring your own board) appeal to different demographics. Her boot camp attendance is almost all outer-Cape locals while the yoga classes are exclusively vacationers.

“Going to the gym in the summer. Who wants to do that?” she said.

Indeed, Fyfe-Kiernan, who lives in Newton but spends four months of the year in Harwich, fell fast for paddleboarding. After enjoying a rented board with her husband and three sons, she invested in one of her own and stretched easily into downward dog, warrior and backbend poses.

“It’s really relaxing,” she said, who plans to take her love of yoga onto the ocean. “It feels fluid.”

But Twomey, who repeatedly reminded the class to work on their ujjayi, or ocean breath, said the rocking movement of the water shouldn’t intimidate anyone.

“You can always just lay on the board,” she said.

Visit Adventure Chatham at 1150 Queen Anne Road, East Harwich, or adventurechatham.com.