Yoga and Surfing - Soul Mates

The first time I ever paddle out on my board and sat waiting 15 minutes for a wave to come along, I knew I had found a place of peace, tranquillity, healing and oneness, just like I experience when practising yoga.

Nothing else exists when I’m in that place. It is if I’ve made a special agreement with the ocean that I have permission to let go of everything and just be with this dynamic force of nature. The same permission applies at a spiritual level through yoga when you honour your body by pushing yourself to a gentle limit during each asana and the healing meditation at the end of the session.

Whilst surfing or practising yoga, my stresses and conce
s for the day, for mankind, for my hungry belly just dissipate. The only things that matters is waiting for the forthcoming wave or calming my breath in preparation for my next move.
What follows your calmness is preparation for the next action. In surfing’s case, it is turning your board around and paddling for your life in order to catch the upcoming wave. With yoga, it is you, your breath and the movement to come. Either way, your focus is solely on the eminent event and your successful completion of it.

The beauty of both is that if you don’t succeed, you stop, learn, re-focus and feel better prepared for the next time. In my case, I laugh a lot at myself about how managed to stuff it up. However, by the end of the session, you feel nirvana for having got that one good ride; you succeeded in finally lifting one foot of the ground doing crow’s pose. You feel awesome for having tried!

What if we can apply this mindset to our lives in task completion? I personally feel that we would be more successful and accomplished.

With that in mind, I put it out to you that for 1 day, you give this mindset a go! For each and every task you need to accomplish, you do with oneness between you and task at hand, you focus, not letting anything distract you, regardless of first attempt success or not, you see it through to conclusion. How does it feel?

If you do need some help with focusing, stop doing the task and visual yourself in the ocean on your board, its dawn, you are watching the sunrise and the wave approach – you are present to that sense of oneness. Then get ready, get set and go.... Namaste...

Let me know how you went.