When we went to the beach last month, I was determined to try beach yoga. I mean, what could be more perfect? I made Sean bring our travel mats (his is the Prana Ashtanga Rug and mine is the lululemon unMat). The first morning we had free, I grabbed my mat and headed down to the beach. It was early enough that not many people were out. Honestly, at Mexico Beach you rarely see any huge crowds even at peak beach times. I started with my usual sun salutations. The start was perfect. It was so serene...just like I had always imagined, but as I raised my hands over my head to conclude the first sun salutation it happened...the sand.
There is no way to keep the sand off of your mat. So as I made my way through the plank, up dog, and down dog, the sand made its way all over my clothes and hands. When I lifted my hands and brought them together over my head, the sand fell - it fell off of my hands and into my face, eyes, cleavage, and hair. Any peace acquired in that first sun salutation was immediately lost. I struggled through the rest of my practice that day, and ended it after only 20 minutes. While the unMat is an excellent travel mat for studio practice, it does not perform well when covered in sand (probably not a surprising fact when you really think about it, but I was blinded by the dream of perfect beach yoga). My feet and hands couldn't grip enough to comfortably do some of the simplest poses, let alone some of my favorites.
Although my first attempt was a failure, I decided to get back out there the next day. This time I decided to use Sean's Ashtanga Rug. Significant improvement! While there was still sand everywhere my hands and feet were solid. It wasn't perfect, and it certainly wasn't glamorous, but it was awesome. The moral of the story...don't treat beach yoga differently than regular yoga...go in without expectations. Yoga is just yoga. It is what it is. If you have expectations going into yoga, you will almost always be disappointed.
