Yoga & Windsurf Clinic 2017

WHAT A WEEK! I’m still smiling thinking back. The improvement on the water and on the yoga-mat was awesome and to get so much positive feedback after this week is just wonderful.

The clinic was held from the 3rd of April till the 7th in Bonaire, in the beautiful bay called Lac Bay with Yoga right at the beach at Sorobon Beach Resort,  and it was the first time I combined Windsurfing with Yoga during a clinic.

After I started with yoga a few years ago for myself besides windsurfing,  I found out that yoga can really complement windsurfing and can greatly improve your performance in the water. Windsurfing makes you stronger, but the many hours on the water also causes sore and tensed muscles. Yoga brings this back in balance and helps being focused. Together with one of my best friends Ladina, who is a experienced yoga teacher and passionate windsurfer herself, we decided to organise this clinic where we wanted to combine windsurfing with yoga. And so it all started :-).

With an exotic cocktail and Caribbean life music we all got to know each other a bit during the welcome apero at Sorobon Beach Resort. And with all these nice, motivated and happy people joining our clinic I knew it would be a great week already!

On Monday we all met at 9:30 AM. Everyone had thought of some windsurf goals for the week and we started the morning with some theory. The very talented and famous Bonairian windsurf teacher Caesar Finies was joining us every morning to teach with me,  so we could split up the group and focus even more on specific things everyone wanted to learn.

We were blessed with an amazing wind forecast during the week. We had good wind the entire week with a peak on Wednesday when it was very strong and a light day at the end of the week to practice some things which are easier with a bit less wind.

After every morning session we had a lunch break to fuel ourselves up and to give those bodies some rest. Most afternoons we started with some video analyses from the morning session. It helps a lot to see what you do wrong ( and what you did good ) and it’s nice to watch this back before getting out on the water again.

It was so great to see people improving even after a few days already. Understanding of what you are doing is so important and most people don’t realize how much theory and video analyses can help! It doesn’t matter what level you are, whether you are a beginner or an advanced windsurfer; with windsurfing the learning process never stops

But…. this week wasn’t just about windsurfing of course! Every afternoon we did finish the day with a yoga session. As a windsurfer herself Ladina knew exactly what our bodies needed after all those hours on the water. Depending on what the participants where learning during the daily windsurf-session, different muscles did work in different ways. Ladina made us learn how to activate  those smaller and stabilizing muscles, practicing different core exercises, to support the bigger muscle groups.

We practiced different breath-techniques, which helps to stay calm and for being focused. Some of the participants had some challenging moments on the water (very strong wind conditions, first deep water session, harness) where they could apply the calming breath techniques. As for myself as well, it helps me a lot to focus on my breathing before and during an important heat in a competition.

It was amazing to see how our clinic-participants did understand and feel the benefit from yoga with windsurfing! They did realize how important it is to stretch out tight muscles after windsurfing to prevent disbalances and muscle pain.

I would like to THANK all of our participants for joining us, for your enthusiasm and for this amazing week that we had together!

We are already looking very much forward to our next yoga & windsurf clinic in Bonaire! If you would like to see what our week was like don’t forget to check out the movie from our week below. 

 Ladina & Arrianne