Yoga on the Beach: GU Winter Term – Belize

Today was our first day doing yoga on the beach – kind of. There was this concrete platform just outside of the Tipsy Tuna restaurant off the beach that we practiced on. It was still a little more difficult to do it outside in the sun rather than in the community center we had previously been practicing in.

We all woke up and met at the Tipsy Tuna at 9. We watched a documentary there (the owner let us use the TV before they opened) about women and yoga and how women have changed the male-dominated tradition. It was very inspirational and taught us a lot about how yoga can be suited for women in every stage of their lives.

After the video we went to the concrete platform I mentioned before. Before we begin our practice we each clear our mind and pick something that we want to focus our attention on for the duration of the practice. In each practice we have, we work on learning 3 of the sunrise salutations. After we worked on those we moved on to balance poses, then stretching, and finally we lay in corpse pose or savasana. In this pose we quietly meditate and attempt to clear our minds and work on our Ujjayi breathing. When we are finished, we bring attention back to our bodies, sit up, and bow to our teacher while saying “namaste,” which means the spirit in me bows to the spirit in you. And that is the end of our practice.

-Sylvia Finger, sophomore