4 Advanced SUP Yoga Poses For Experienced Paddlers

SAN DIEGO, California - Once you learn and get comfortable with beginner and moderate SUP yoga poses, you should now be ready to challenge yourself and learn some of the more advanced poses. Dashama Gordon is one of the leading voices in the SUP Yoga movement and together with her sponsor Starboard SUP, Dashama has come out with a series of SUP Yoga tutorials where she shares some standup paddle board yoga poses. In this feature, Dashama walks through a few different advanced yoga poses that you can try out.

If you're ready for a challenge join Starboard SUP athletes Dashama Gordon and Sean Poynter as they run through an advanced SUP Yoga routine. Before you begin and try the video on your own, Dashama recommends that you watch the video first to get a feel of what you will be getting into and the poses you will be practicing. Remember, the more you practice, the better you will get.

Forward Bend

Sean Poynter (center) and Dashama practicing a forward bend.

Starting with your feet centered in the middle of the board, place your hands together, inhale and sweep your arms in and up, interlace your fingers above you, and then exhale and bow forward placing your palms on the board into a forward bend.

Side Angle / Warrior 2 Pose

(Left) Side angle pose. (Right) Warrior 2 pose.

From here, step your left foot all the way back, keeping your right knee at a 90° angle. Make sure your left foot is perpendicular to your right foot. From here, take your right hand diagonal and use your right shoulder to stabilize your right knee. At the same time, extend your left arm up to the sky, breathing into the hips and breathing into the hamstrings. Then (if you can), inhale, rising up into a warrior two position.

Click here to see more SUP Yoga tips.

Advanced Downward Dog

Have your arms extended out with your hips low and your knee being at a 90° angle in the front leg. Here take a few deep breaths inhaling and exhaling. From here, windmill your arms forward, step your right foot back into the plank position, lower yourself, then lift your heart and transition into an upward facing dog. On the exhale, transition yourself into the downward facing dog position.

(Left) Upward dog. (Right) Downward dog with a leg lift. 

To challenge yourself, on the inhale, raise your right leg up into the sky and lengthen as you round into the left foot. Take a breath here lengthening your spine. Bring your right leg back down and repeat this with your left leg in the air.

From here, come back to the center and move your right foot back and left knee forward into the 90° angle, repeating the side angle pose you've done earlier. Repeat the warrior two and the downward and upward dog poses.

Headstand

Sean Poynter (left) attempting the headstand while Dashama (right) perfectly executes it.

For your final pose come down on your knees, interlace your fingers and have your elbows at a shoulder-distance apart. Then, we're going to place the crown of the head in between the forearms so that the crown of the head is nice and flat. Once you put the crown of your head on your board, lift your hips and then you just walk your feet up and towards your face.

You want to have your hips are above your shoulders and get your shoulders and head all aligned and from here begin to lift your toes and raise your feet to the sky.

Tip: use your core strength to help lift your body into a vertical position.

The headstand is one of the harder poses to master on the water so don't get discouraged if you don't get the hang of it right away. Also, another thing to remember is that it is okay to fall in! Practice makes perfect! Watch the full tutorial from Dashama in the video below.

To see more SUP Yoga tips and tutorials from Dashama, click here.

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