Yoga teacher Ashley Flowers leads a yoga class on paddleboards off East Finish Seaside in Portland on Sunday. The category was a part of the three-day Maine YogaFest. Gregory Rec/Workers Photographer
Discuss stability.
Ashley Flowers led a yoga class Sunday on paddleboards within the ocean water off the seaside on the Japanese Promenade in Portland.
After getting paddleboards from Maine Paddle, heading out from the shore and dropping anchors to maintain from drifting, the category started.
Flowers, of Ashley Flowers Yoga in Portland, led her seven college students doing the “cat-cow pose” and the “little one’s pose.” Additionally they did the “downward canine” and even the “three-legged canine” (palms down on the board, head lowered, hips and buttocks up, one leg on the board and the opposite pointed excessive).
The Maine YogaFest, held Friday, Saturday and Sunday in Portland, drew about 340 college students and 28 yoga academics. Gregory Rec/Workers Photographer
For a couple of half-hour all stayed on their boards doing yoga, till one misplaced his stability, fell within the water, then scrambled again on his board.
The paddleboard yoga class was a part of the Maine YogaFest 2022, a three-day occasion held on the East Finish Group College.
The pageant had been held for a number of years till 2020, when it was known as off as a result of pandemic. It didn’t resume till Friday, stated organizer Andrea Gleason, who owns Scarborough Yoga. This yr’s occasion, the eighth yoga pageant, drew about 340 college students, and 28 yoga academics who donated their time, she stated.
“It’s about celebrating yoga and the advantages of yoga and sharing it,” Gleason stated. The final pageant, held in 2019, was attended by 515 college students, so this yr is a time of rebuilding, she stated, including that everybody was joyful to be again collectively.
Yoga teacher Ashley Flowers, left, leads a yoga class on paddleboards off East Finish Seaside in Portland on Sunday. Gregory Rec/Workers Photographer
Many varieties of the yoga lessons had been held underneath tents on the college grounds on Sunday, together with “yin yoga,” “restorative yoga” and “sluggish the funk down yoga.” There was additionally music and meals vans, together with distributors and sponsors promoting their wares and providers.
“Everyone is smiling. We’re social beings, we’re meant to be with folks. The world is messy now,” Gleason stated, including that yoga helps folks take care of stress. The pageant permits folks to return collectively, transfer collectively “and breathe collectively, to sing and chuckle, and generally fall (throughout) yoga strikes. It’s uplifting.”
It doesn’t matter what form an individual is in, yoga could be for everybody, she stated. “Anybody can do yoga.”
To her, among the best advantages of yoga is what she known as “respiration room, the flexibility to pause earlier than you react, the flexibility to navigate stress with just a little extra ease,” Gleason stated. Yoga forces somebody to concentrate on motion and respiration, disregarding the noise of issues. In yoga, Gleason stated, “you reset your self.”
Kayakers paddle by a yoga class off East Finish Seaside in Portland on Sunday. Gregory Rec/Workers Photographer
Different yoga advantages embrace reducing blood strain, easing nervousness and melancholy, and making the physique stronger with extra vary of movement in joints and muscular tissues.
Susan Desjardins of Madawaska sat on her mat underneath a tent ready for her yoga class to start on Sunday.
She had attended the pageant for years, till the COVID-19 pause. “I come all the best way right here as a result of the place I dwell there aren’t any yoga studios,” Desjardins stated. At residence in The County, she does yoga by herself. Doing yoga on the pageant recharges her, and it’s good to apply with others, she stated.
Yoga helps her to alleviate stiffness, aches and pains that getting older can ship, she stated.
Yoga teacher Ashley Flowers leads a yoga class on paddleboards off East Finish Seaside in Portland on Sunday. Gregory Rec/Workers Photographer
Together with her was Marilyn Michaud of Bangor, Desjardins’ sister-in-law. Michaud stated she likes the pageant as a result of it affords totally different sorts of yoga, classes to take residence. And on the yoga pageant “it’s such a optimistic power,” she stated.
Richard Gomberg of Newton, Massachusetts, was one other who got here to the pageant. He was one of many college students within the paddleboard class who fell within the water.
A yoga veteran, he stated he took a dip as a result of he was pushing himself, “attempting one thing out” on the board, the “warrior two model.”
At residence he does paddleboard yoga by himself on a lake. The ocean was more durable, “just a little extra rocky,” he stated. The trainer, Flowers, gave him recommendations on the best way to greatest use the paddleboard for yoga stretches. It was exhausting at occasions preserve his stability on the ocean, Gomberg stated. “That’s the enjoyable.”
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