P.E.I. yogis pose in scenic locations across the Island

The summertime scenery across Prince Edward Island is inspiring a growing number of outdoor yoga classes, as well as yogis posing and sharing their poses on social media.

Erika Killam has her own yoga business called 3e yoga and started taking her classes outside in 2011, starting with what she called urban yoga, which she taught in the open area at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown.

"It was a great opportunity to be outside, to continue to do your yoga practice, to continue to get together with a community," Killam said.

Since then, she has taught classes at the Indian River Festival, on paddle boards on the Charlottetown Harbour and, most recently, on the outdoor deck at a local restaurant.

"It was nice and secluded, you didn't have people staring at you which is kind of one of the things when you do outdoor yoga," Killam said. 

"You're going to have people looking at you, you're going to have passersby." 

Weather challenge

Killam said there are other challenges to doing yoga outside.

"Definitely dealing with the weather, that's the hardest thing I find is planning it and then having to make those last-minute changes if you need to," Killam said.

"Finding a space to have some shade and some sun because not everybody likes to be in the direct sunlight, they might want to be in some shade."

There are also other elements that come with being outdoors.

"I feel like most of my students have been pretty cool about the bugs, they sort of brush them away " Killam said.

"But I know I don't love it when you're lying in savasana and you hear that buzzing and you're like 'I don't want to move but I really know there's something right by my head.'"

When it comes to the beach, Killam said there are some things to keep in mind.

"I usually suggest no yoga mat and just using the sand because you feel even more grounded," Killam said. 

"Also you want to do a practice that's usually more standing poses, you're not going to want to be rolling around too much in the sand."

Parks popularity

Karen Langevin has been teaching yoga on the beach for Parks Canada since 2015 and she said there can be as many as 30 people in the classes during the peak of summer at the Cavendish and Stanhope campgrounds.

She said the beach is the perfect setting for yoga.

"It's easy to ask people to imagine the flow of their breath when you hear the ocean sound or to feel the sand underneath their toes when you're rooting your feet into the earth," Langevin said.

"They can imagine their spine just moving along with their breath and with the flow of the ocean so it's just weaving all of these elements so easy."

Langevin enjoys teaching poses related to nature on the beach, including eagle, fish pose and boat pose.

Two summers ago, Langevin created a pose inspired by the Confederation Bridge.

"I line them up just on the edge of the water … to extend their arms out to the side and touch the middle finger of the next person," Langevin said.

"I try to setup so that the tallest people are in the centre and it goes down to the smallest … on each side."

Yoga shares

Killam enjoys seeing the many posts on social media of people doing yoga around Prince Edward Island.

"If they're a yogi, they're probably going to just pop into a pose," Killam said. 

"Dancer pose or warrior, right in the cliffs and in the dunes, people love … to take their yoga shots."

While Killam enjoys summertime yoga, she's also a fan of snowga — yoga in the snow.

"One of my most favourite places to practice is in a nice, really good, thick snowy ground," Killam said. 

"When it's all icy and gross it's terrible, but when it's a really good fluff and you can roll around in it. It's great."

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