Beach time

We’ve been on the beach most days while we’re in Greece. The weather is still fabulous, so how could we not! Although the scenery is beautiful with clear calm waters filled with little fish and acres of gold sand, in truth I find long hours at the beach pretty dull. But Aussie Hubby totally loves to be in the sea (or ‘ocean’ as he endearingly calls it). In any case he doesn’t make me hang out all day — we just take a quick dip together in the later afternoon, when he knocks off work for the day.

And when I’m done with swimming I’ve discovered that yoga on the beach can be great. I’m not one for public displays of yoga asana (so not cool), but I thought the soft sandy landing might be the perfect environment to explore taking my new headstanding abilities away from the studio wall and out into thin air. Yikes! It’s kind of scary, it’s kind of exciting. And I can kind of do it already! A few wipe-outs have only added to the fun and at least it’s quickly gotten me over my fear of falling out backwards. It turns out not to be as terrible as I’d imagined. Sand is my friend!

And clearly my pose is more show-offy than I imagined because Hubby reported to me that the girl along from me on the sand tried copying — with rather less successful results. Her boyfriend was less impressed with her than Hubby was with me. He’s never actually seen me stand on my head before and he offered gratifying ooh-aah tones of slight awe as I lifted up pretty cleanly the first time and stayed a few breaths before I felt the wobbles threaten to undermine me.

So this has become a little daily practice for me: a couple of times lifting up and lowering down, feeling my alignment in space, getting more confident in my ability to make those little self-corrections to keep me upright and balanced. I hope by the end of a couple of weeks I should have it nailed and be able to do this at home without fear of toppling out of a window or smashing any furniture 🙂