Outdoor Yoga
Yoga in the outdoors has become increasingly common in recent years. Yoga in city parks is just one example. I’ve practiced yoga beside rivers and lakes, atop mountains, in forests, in snow, on beaches. It is a wonderful way to enhance a day in the outdoors for two reasons. First, yoga asana, poses, prepare you for exercise, whether it be paddling, hiking, cycling, even birding. After a yoga warmup session - it can be as little as 10 or 15 minutes, I think, but longer is preferable - the body is more limber, muscles warmed and stretched. Injury is less likely, exercise is more comfortable. The second reason is mindfulness; a yoga practice before outdoor activity ideally leaves the practitioner in a state of equanimity, more receptive to the experiences of the outdoors. Yoga helps us truly see and appreciate what is before us when we interact with flora, fauna, mountains, meadows, rivers, lakes and the sea. Namaste!
Steve leading early morning yoga at a campsite beside the Rogue River in southern Oregon.
Yoga teacher Robin Kirsche does triangle pose in the snow in Farmington, CT
Steve mimicking two palm trees in tree pose, Jensen Beach, Florida
Yoga on a dock
Steve and Robin Kirsche practicing yoga along the Appalachian Trail, Salisbury, CT.
Steve coming into Dancer pose on the Catamount Trail in northern Vermont.
Tree pose atop Mount Ascutney, elevation 3,144-feet. Ascutney is a monadnock, a solitary mountain, in Windsor, Vermont.