How To: SUP Yoga – Cow Face Pose

Check out the fun we had doing SUP Yoga the other day on San Diego Bay in the beautiful So Cal weather! Here is my friend and I doing Cow Face Pose, or Gomukhasana, which is a challenging seated posture. As you can see in the picture, we aren’t pretzels. If you are a runner, or paddle board a lot like myself and my friend Genevieve, you may feel a lot of tightness in your hips and shoulders. That just means you athletes out there should be keep practicing this pose to stretch and lengthen the muscles! Just relax, breathe, and go easy on yourself. :)

Here’s how to do it!

1. Come to a seated position, bend your knees and put your feet on the board. Slide your left leg under the right bringing your left foot to the outside of your right hip. Cross the right leg over the left, and bring the right foot to the outside of the left hip. Try to stack the knees on top of each other, and bring the heels the same distance from the hips. This may take some adjusting.

2. Sweep the right arm behind your torso while rolling the shoulder back and down. Work the forearm up your back and try to keep it parallel to your spine. The back of your hand will be between your shoulder blades. If you feel like this pose is going to be too deep of a stretch, you can always modify it and try doing a simple stretch like Genevieve in the picture.

3. Reach your left arm up to lengthen, and then bend the elbow and reach behind you like you are trying to scratch your back. Reach for the right finger tips. If you cannot reach your right hand, try using your SUP leash to draw the hands closer together.

4. Stay in this pose for about a minute. Release and repeat with the legs and arms reversed for the same amount of time.

Enjoy!

Gillian