yoga – On the Horizon Line

sailing blog travel south pacific on the horizon line brianna randall rob roberts

Morning Jagermeister and Other Tales of Leadership

“Do you do Jager?” Lionel asked me in his South African/Australian accent. I had just met Lionel and his wife, Irene, during happy hour at the one bar in Fare, the largest town on the island of Huahine.

“Not since college,” I replied with a startled laugh, remembering the licorice-flavored taste of shots of Jagermeister at San Diego bars. Gross.

“But you really look like you do Jager,” Lionel said stubbornly.

“Wait a minute … what do you think ‘yeagher‘ is?” I asked cautiously, wondering if I’d become so relaxed that I looked perpetually pumped full of alcohol.

“You know, stretching and bending and stuff,” he replied.

“Oh, yoga! Yeah, I do a lot of yoga,” I said in relief, and then explained my miscommunication. Rob was laughing hysterically beside me.

Next up, Lionel asked if I’d lead morning yoga sessions on the lawn in the southern anchorage. He was an avid yogi, and had organized a few morning stretch sessions at different spots in Polynesia. Lionel hadn’t ever taught before, and was excited to have a new “yoga queen,” as he later nicknamed me. I, on the other hand, felt a strange reluctance to lead. I’ve found a new passion for yoga the past few months at sea, and it felt like a private passion. I wanted to selfishly guard my morning yoga energy rather than spread it out across unknown people.

Other people we’ve shared sailboats with had asked if they could follow my yoga routine. I’d led a few half-assed sessions on the bow for whoever else could fit alongside, or follow along from a neighboring boat’s deck. But yoga on a boat isn’t the same as yoga on land, and I was hesitant to be in charge of “real” yoga for people with various ability levels (not to mention various English comprehension!). That smacked of a job, which I want no part of.

But then I kicked my selfish self, and told Lionel “of course I’d lead Jager.” After a rusty first few minutes, I sunk quickly back into a leadership role. My mind churned quickly through the potential flow of poses. My eyes scanned the different participants for their comfort level. My hands made adjustments to their bodies. My mouth called out instructions on how to move, and variations to make sure everyone felt confident and safe in each pose.

It was great. Every morning at 8:30am, a fleet of dinghys would land on the white sand beach, and 5 to 10 cruisers would walk up to a grassy spot surrounded by palm trees. We’d lay out towels or mats in a circle, and I’d start the practice. I especially had fun watching the progression of the participants: Jim from Ireland who could almost touch the ground on Day 4. Mark, our shipmate, who could easily get into a headstand alone on Day 2. Jan from Slovenia whose hips opened like flowers in triangle pose. The German woman who had never tried yoga in her life, succeeding in crow pose. Moana, a local breakdancer from Huahine, who joined in to learn our balancing poses.

Like you probably already guessed, I received just as much energy from the group practice as I did from my private practice. It was a different type of energy, for sure, but just as potent. I liked the confidence boost it gave me, especially after being the follower and novice onboard so many boats the past few months. And I really enjoyed making people feel better in their bodies and their hearts, too. Next time someone asks me to lead yoga (or Jager, for that matter), I won’t hesitate to say yes.

Dance and Yoga, Reflections on Life, Traveling

A Treatise on Slacker-dom

It’s a luxury to be totally irresponsible. I’m not taking it for granted, either. For someone like me who was a workaholic and a (slight) control freak during my academic and professional careers, it’s totally novel to just sit back and do nothing for a change. Sure, I’ve always been good at taking long, relaxing vacations. But it feels remarkably different to have no end in sight for the long vacation, no one to worry about except me and Rob, no responsibilities, deadlines, bills, or schedule.

I thought I’d be antsy with the free time. I thought I’d be motivated to think up new life goals, to set objectives for next steps. I thought I’d immediately start on the Great American Novel, or organize dance parties and potlucks every night. And I DEFINITELY thought I’d squirm at having to take orders on other people’s boats. Instead, I feel little pull to make big decisions right now, and even the small ones sometimes seem taxing. Surprisingly (at least to me), I’m enjoying following instead of leading. I’m wallowing happily in my newfound slacker-dom.

Of course, there have certainly been moments when I wish I could just take the wheel myself, set the anchor where I want, or organize the cabin my own way. Early on, I had to learn when to bite my tongue and get used to asking permission instead of giving directions. But the transition into ceding responsibility took much less energy than I’d thought. Granted, we participate in decisions to a point, and chime in if we ever feel our safety is at risk.

But 90% of the time, if the captain says “sheet in the main,” I turn the winch and if he says “go to port,” I turn the wheel. And if we hit a reef or the sail rips, it isn’t my responsibility to fix the problem. Even when the control freak in me rears her head occassionally, she quickly bumps into the slacker wallowing on the surface and settles back down.

My slacker-dom was fully revealed to me in Huahine, when I balked at leading yoga sessions for cruisers. That’s how far I’d come in shirking all responsibility: I was reluctant to even take charge of a half-dozen sailors who wanted to stretch for an hour. Jeez. I’ll tell you more about those yoga sessions in the next post, but for now I’ll just say that my normal personality emerged and I happily taught some poses on the beach.

The problem with suddenly being in charge of something, though, was that it woke up my ambitious side. Just a little bit, but enough to make me look around and have a minor epiphany: slacker-dom decreases freedom. Counter-intuitive, right? All of you reading this who are inundated with deadlines, bills and schedules are scoffing at me, thinking that I’m the one with all the freedom. And that’s certainly true, to an extent. But the less responsibility we take, the less chance we have to influence our future. The less we lead where we want to go, the more powerless we are to determine our destination.

In less oovy-groovy terms: if Rob and I owned our own boat, we could go wherever we wanted, however we wanted. We could let our sails luff or yank in the sheets to go faster. Same with me leading yoga instead of following someone else: I get to pick the poses that feel good in my body, and be creative in shaping the flow and flex of the practice. I’m definitely not ready to be my own capitan yet, nor do I want to set up a yoga-for-cruisers school. But after a four-month hiatus from being responsible, I think my slacker-dom might be subsiding some. We’ll see what emerges from the mellow muddle the South Pacific has made of my more ambitious side.

on the horizon line - sailing and traveling blog in mexico

Dance and Yoga

Yoga Boat-Style: Root Through Your Feet.

Imagine doing yoga without ever finding stillness in a pose. Imagine your downward dog is always walking, rocking, swaying to and fro. Imagine that your greatest accomplishment during practice is holding chair pose without doing an accidental somersault. Imagine going back to the beginning after you’d been advancing through a practice for 15 years.

Practicing yoga while sailing the big blue sea probably feels similar to doing yoga in a dryer set on “tumble.” It requires a whole new level of zen. Even though attempting yoga on a bouncing boat can be extremely frustrating in itself, the alternative would be even more frustrating: I would be a horrible crew member and unhappy human without my practice onboard. Yoga helps me breathe through the ocean’s endless time. It centers me within an incomprehensibly vast space.

Continuing to practice at sea unveiled new wells of patience with myself, and forces me to accept the limits imposed by the watery world around my floating home. The worst sacrifice: no headstands. Bridge and downward dog are about the only safe inversion in 15-foot seas. Forward bends and child’s pose round out the blood-to-the-head poses. Second saddest sacrifice: no balancing poses … at least in the traditional sense.

In reality, every movement all day long on passage is its own balancing pose. Even the simplest yoga asanas requires 100 times more forcus on balance than they do on land. The rolling swells require at least 3 points of contact at all times, but often 4 points is mandatory. Triangle becomes a tangle as the stern dips 20 degrees left, then right, then flings left again. Warrior series are possible only if one hand maintains a death grip on a nearby lifeline, which limits their fluidity and mobility. A simple sun salutation is an ab-busting, shoulder-wrenching, mind-over-matter exercise as my ass becomes a pendulum threatening to overtake my anchor points on deck. I’ll never roll my eyes again when an instructor says to “root through my feet” or “feel grounded in the pose.”

Luckily, yoga at sea provides plenty of benefits, once I was ready to receive them. Even as a moving boat drastically narrows the diversity of available asanas, it doubles the amount of time I practice. Each morning I move through sun salutes to energize and elongate. Long, comforting stretches settle my mind and bones during the 12:00 to 2:00am night watch each evening. I have a newfound affection for the hatha and yin yoga poses I used to shun in favor of faster-paced flow. The rocking space lets me connect truly and deeply to each asana.

I still long for the day when I can cement my feet — and my head! — to a substrate that stays still. Meanwhile, yoga reminds me that my body is still my own, though it feels lighter and smaller beneath the uncontrollable wind and waves. It keeps me saner, calmer, quieter, and more real during the surreal journeys across the sea.

Off the Rack in Missoula dance bodypaint brianna randall

Dance and Yoga, Sailing

Exercise on a Boat

I’m sitting in the grungy hallway of a junior high school in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The buzzing fluorescent lights highlight the 1970s avocado-green tiles, and illuminate Rob and his brother, Brent, playing volleyball in the gym a few yards ahead of me.

We’re visiting Rob’s family for a week before we head off next month. I’m quickly realizing it’s a good test case for how I’ll cope with transitioning to a boat, at least in terms of exercise. The bad news: it’s been 24 hours and I already feel antsy.

The good news: I just found the girls locker room and danced like a crazy woman to music blasting from my laptop, which made me feel much better.

One thing I’m most anxious about as we embark on our voyage is that I’ll become a bitchy and unhappy person if I can’t get enough exercise. Other people seem slightly concerned, too: for instance, my friend Heather turned to me during an Oula Dance class last week in sudden alarm, asking, “Bri! How are you going to dance on a boat?” Great question, and one that I’ve spent a lot of time pondering.

If you know me at all, you know I don’t sit. I have a standing desk, I bike to work, I do yoga, dance, and strength training. And that’s often all in a single day (thank you, Downtown Dance Collective). Then there’s the outdoor activities that keep me sane and peaceful: hiking, mountain biking, backpacking, cross-country skiing.

Movement is a huge part of who I am and how I relate to the world. I’ve been reading Zero to Cruising and other blogs to learn how other cruisers deal. I know that sailing is active, and that I’ll use my body plenty onboard.

But I’m still anticipating that I’ll need to learn to let go of the antsy feeling that wells up when I stay put.

I’ll need to learn to breathe through the frustration of not being able to hop on my bike and ride hard uphill. Most importantly, I’ll need to be creative in the small, confined space. Pushups, lunges and sit-ups will get boring fast.

That’s why I’m planning on dancing my way across the Pacific. I might not get to make big turns or long leaps. And I won’t look nearly as cool as I did in the performance picture to the left (note: this is how I picture myself when I dance … even in grungy junior high locker rooms). But that won’t stop me from dancing on the bow — even if I have to wear a life jacket and strap myself to the mast.

Stay tuned for videos and posts on how I stay fit, sane and (hopefully) pleasant during our Pacific crossing. Meanwhile, I’m going to do a set of jumping jacks to stay pleasant here in Pennsylvania while I wait for Rob.

Dance and Yoga

Old-School Yoga

This month marks the 14th anniversary of my first yoga class. A couple of years after that first “Intro to Yoga” course in college, I found my niche in a vinyasa class in Ocean Beach, San Diego. It taught me to breathe through stress, and that it was ok to be uncomfortable.

A couple of years after that, I moved to Missoula and met one of my best friends and favorite yoga and dance teachers, Gillian Kessler. She opened up a whole new world to me, showing me how to integrate yoga into daily movement or intricate dance routines.

This weekend, Gillian told me: “Vinyasa is my home.” I loved that image, as it meshes with how at peace her body is in her practice.

Tonight, I dedicated my practice to discovering which poses felt most like “home” to me in this new year. I’ve come a long way in my yoga practice the past 14 years, and it’s been a curvy road rather than a straight line. In fact, I’m finding that road has turned full circle — my favorite poses are the ones I first learned.

Yeah, I can do complicated contortions, arm balances, and inversions. And I’m proud that I’m finally strong enough to do headstands, crow or three-legged sun salutations.

But I don’t really want to do them right now.

Where I feel happiest today is in good ol’ warrior 2. And downward dog. Maybe a little triangle thrown in for pizazz.

Why warrior 2, you ask? Because my bones settle easily here with one knee bent and all my toes spread. It feels natural and calming. But it’s also full of this quiet power, and energy waiting to pounce.

Plus, the pose echos my mental space right now. My fingers are reaching in two opposite directions — for home and for the unknown.

My feet are rooted in the earth, but my head is lifting toward the clouds. My core is perfectly centered and still, but every appendage is actively reaching for a new direction.

My gaze is forward, looking for what tomorrow will bring, but I’m not quite ready to walk toward it yet.

One thing I know for certain: tomorrow will bring more yoga, even if warrior 2 is no longer where my bones settle best. Tomorrow will frame different poses against new horizons, and those poses will reflect my changing thoughts and emotions as we sail away.

One thing I hope for: that practicing yoga will feel like coming home, even when I’m far from the familiar during our voyage into the unknown.