I wasn’t the only one falling

Nicole Turner has been meeting with eight yoga students at Fanuel Street Park at 8 am.

“There’s less activity on the water as far as boats and people,” she said, “the fewer waves, the easier the classes are.”

Turner is a certified SUP Yoga instructor from Paradise Paddle Yoga.

“Our class is a modified version of a yoga class done on paddleboards.”

Turner provides her students with inflatable boards made specifically for SUP Yoga. “They are wider, the duck pads are longer and light to carry.”

The park is about five blocks south of Grand Avenue. She briefs her students about how to paddle out to their nearby floating-yoga spot in Sail Bay (northern Mission Bay).

“You are going to be using a lot of different muscles than you would normally use. The easiest of poses on a mat in a yoga studio are going to be a lot more challenging on the board in the water.”

The SUP Yoga portion of the class goes for an hour where the group does poses lying on their bellies, backs, hands and knees.

“Any type of inversion is going to be challenging whether it be a headstand, handstand and forearm stand,” she said. “Then anything when you are standing on the board is difficult: like a normal crescent lunge, warrior 1-2 ….. and warrior 3 is virtually impossible — that’s where you’re only standing on one leg and you’ve got the other leg out behind you.”

“If you get wet you just hop back up on your board, have a little laugh and keep going,” she said.

“And that was the best part about the entire experience,” posted Turner’s student on Facebook, “[and] I wasn’t the only one falling (followed by a smiley face emoticon).”

Dana Mitchell, from SunChaser SUP & Yoga, teaches at the same bay three blocks east from the Catamaran Resort. She offers classes in the morning, then after she and her students occasionally sip on Mimosas.

As the weather cools down a bit the SUP Yoga attire can change depending on the student.

“Most people have a bathing suit on and then yoga clothes,” Turner said, “and you can kind of layer up and take layers off as you are going throughout the practice.”