Go with the flow of stand-up paddleboard yoga

CAMAS — Carla Slocum helps teach stand-up paddleboard yoga in the summer to get people out of their comfort zones. I’m already uncomfortable and I’m still on land.

Boats and boards are sloshing the water around the Lacamas Lake boat launch.

“Teaching in the studio is one thing. I like being out here, because it’s never the same,” said Slocum, a 47-year-old Camas native and instructor at Washougal-based Body Bliss Yoga. “When was the last time you tried something for the first time?”

Uhh … well … hmm.

My mind spins, trying to recall when I last experienced true, adventurous novelty. It’s a fitting mantra for summers in the Pacific Northwest when warm, dry days are precious and fleeting. You have to seize opportunities or risk not having the chance for another year.

This is my chance to try SUP yoga.

I have been on a paddleboard twice before. The first time, I didn’t fall. The second time, the wind kicked up in Hood Canal — just after I saw a seal swim under my board — and dumped me into the cool water. I briefly bobbed underneath the board, attached to it by an ankle leash.

That magical — albeit wet — time paddling across the glittering water with the Olympic Mountains in the background was three years ago, and I have no good excuse for why I haven’t been on a board since.

The cost to paddle is minimal compared with other things I could do during summer’s long hours. I just haven’t made the time.

Yoga teaches people to find time, said Angie Cherry, who owns Body Bliss Yoga and teaches SUP yoga. It’s not just about the postures, or asana, she said.

“Yoga is actually this way of life that’s just very peaceful,” said Cherry, 39. “People have a hard time today balancing their time between working and kids and taking care of themselves. I think it teaches you to do that better.

“It also teaches you to value yourself in a different kind of way. If you start to really get into your practice you notice your life begins to shift a little bit, because things that were important become less important, and things that were not important or were overlooked or taken for granted all of a sudden become really important to you.”

That includes finding time to paddle across the tree-lined Lacamas Lake in Camas.

A 10-year yoga practitioner, Cherry tried SUP yoga for the first time at the Wanderlust Festival in California’s Lake Tahoe.

“I realized my alignment was a little bit off, because I toppled backward in a warrior II, which should be a really easy pose, but on a stand-up paddleboard, it just makes it completely different,” she said. “Even if you’ve been doing yoga a long time, you’re going to notice your alignment has to shift a little bit. Being balanced is much harder on the water.”

After Cherry and Slocum traveled to Southern California to get World Paddle Association certification in SUP and SUP yoga, Cherry got more serious about SUP and bought her own board. These days, she is on the water at least twice a week paddling and teaching. Cherry and Slocum alternate who leads the SUP yoga class and who paddles around assisting people, collecting errant life jackets and paddles. For the past two summers, they’ve offered classes through a partnership with Sweetwater SUP Rentals, which rents stand-up paddleboards and kayaks at the Lacamas Lake boat launch.

Clark County has been quietly building its roster of businesses that rent paddleboards and kayaks, as well as offer lessons and tours (another reason I have no excuse). But, Cherry’s stand-up paddleboard yoga class is the only one offered by a local studio.

“I’m not just a yogi, but a business person, too. Yoga in the summertime goes way down, because nobody wants to come in the studio in the Northwest when it’s so bright and beautiful outside. So the business person in me thought, ‘How can I keep my business going in the summer?’ And, the person who wanted to be outside with everyone else said, ‘How can I be outside while still doing business?’ ”

Unique challenges

The class would paddle from the boat launch to Round Lake — where motorized boats aren’t allowed — for a calmer, quieter experience.

“In a stand-up paddleboard yoga class, people are going to have a completely different experience than in a studio. A studio setting is very controlled. Out on the water, everything is a variable,” Cherry said. “You have all kinds of things going on around you. You get to experience all the elements. You get to experience the serenity of the water, and you get to experience the challenge of trying to balance on something that’s continually moving beneath you. It’s a lot of core strength and it’s also lot of alignment.”

I’m the first to get on my board and into the water, taking a few minutes to dink around and contemplate whether my waterproof notebook will float. I jot down that teens are doing flips off a low bridge on the other side of the lake.

Wait a minute.

The next step is to paddle under a bridge to Round Lake. I spin my head around. There are no other bridges. Panic sets in as we paddle our way toward the Everett Street bridge that crosses over the narrow canal dividing Lacamas and Round lakes. There’s maybe 1 1/2 feet of clearance, not enough to sit upright on the board. Oh, and don’t forget to yell “coming under,” so that people don’t cannonball onto your board, Cherry said.

“Don’t be scared. I see your eyes, Patty,” she said, paddling past me.

Yoga teachers, the good ones, have the ability to not only assess your posture but also how you’re feeling. I drop to my stomach, gripping my paddle above my head.

“Coming under!” I yell, as I try to avoid pinballing between the bridge’s concrete pillars.

When we come out the other side, kids are plunging into the water from a rope swing. Other people are kayaking and blasting music while sunbathing on floats.

We settle near shore, away from the noise, and drop anchor. There’s a rectangle in the middle of the board that supposed to be the center of balance, so I focus on kneeling with my legs on either side of this spot.

From kneeling, we begin a flow, moving between cat and cow pose: dropping the belly toward the board and then arching the back away from it.

“As you move through these (poses), I just want you to notice the gentle sway of the water,” Cherry said.

I rock my board a little bit.

“Try to stay with your breath,” Cherry added. “The hardest thing to do is to not resist the movement and the flow, so just be with it.”

When we get into our first downward-facing dog pose — the lot of us looking like fins jutting out of the water — the lake is suddenly upside-down. It’s a view you’d never get in a yoga studio.

“I will tell you guys this: The paddle out might have seemed a little bit wobbly. By the time you actually do yoga on this board and paddle back, it’s going to feel like cake. It’ll be really easy,” Cherry said.

Focusing on my breath — and not the looming possibility of dunking myself into the lake — is a challenge. During “yogi playtime,” as Cherry calls it, I try camel pose; I lean back, grab my ankles and tilt my head back.

I lift back up. The class miraculously stays dry.

As the 45-minute class comes to a close, we transition into savasana, or final resting pose. I lie down on my board and let my arms relax into the lake water.

The class fights strong winds paddling back to the boat launch. It’s a struggle, but less so when I realize I’ve been paddling with my paddle facing the wrong way. I recall the advice of a kayaking guide who led me through Lake Billy Chinook in Oregon, where high winds and motorized boats toss up the water: “Hit the wakes head on,” he said.

And I do, feeling strong as I slam the wakes and approach the dock.

All the serenity of Round Lake and the class has evaporated. Some kids are negotiating launching from the dock and others are diving underwater, popping up along the dock. They’re yelling at their friends, and their mother is yelling at them. Together, it’s a cacophony that sums up summers on the lake: messy, soggy, uncontrolled. Outside, on the water, there’s no way to control the temperature or the wind or the whims of other people.

Go with the flow. And if that fails, Cherry tells me Saturday morning SUP yoga classes are quieter, because the lake and summer revelers are just starting to wake.