Come enjoy the relaxing art of Yoga combined with the core burning sport of Stand Up Paddle Boarding! These classes take your favorite yoga routines and put them on the water. Our Yoga classes will bring balance and help restore your body to it’s natural state by creating physical, mental and spiritual harmony. Both yoga and stand up paddle boarding are great for building better balance, coordination, endurance, and neuromuscular re-education!
We are hosting a summer group SUP & SUP Yoga series with Hotel Milo for paddle boarding and paddle board yoga on the following dates:
– June 28th, 2015
– July 26th, 2015
– August 30th, 2015
These are group classes with SUP Yoga starting at 9:30am and regular SUP at 11am. Both classes meet at Hotel Milo and are $45 each with all rentals included.
Important Details:
– SUP Yoga classes range from 1 to 1.5 hours.
– All SUP Yoga and SUP Fitness Instructors are registered Yoga Instructors or Personal Trainers.
– Boards and paddles are included in the lessons.
– Classes meet in the harbor for the tranquil waters.
As animals go, we humans are the oddities in our jungle. Unlike most, we are designed to stand up and travel great distances on just two legs. Though our evolution is the subject of great debate, all human babies are born with an innate drive to stand up. Offer your index fingers to the hands of a tiny seated infant and the baby will grip hard, using your offered fingers to immediately push themselves upright on to their wobbly little feet. A human baby will progress from standing alone to walking and eventually running, usually by the second year of life.
Stand up paddling gives us humans an amazingly efficient way to travel quickly across a body of water in our naturally favored position. Think about how excited and intrigued you were the first time you saw someone stand up paddling. Tap into your nomadic ancestry and you’ll understand how valuable it would have been for hunting and the discovery of safe, more verdant shores. It has a universal appeal.
As humans, we are naturally inclined to move forward. We advance with our eyes first, scanning the horizon, arms helping to propel our bodies, all while effortlessly balancing on two feet. Modern stand up paddling is inherently recognized as a valuable skill by our inner prehistoric selves.
ANCIENT FISHERMAN LAY THE GROUNDWORK
Fishermen all over the world have been standing solo in their small vessels for thousands of years. Chan Chan is ground zero of a rich and ancient Peruvian civilization. Bordered by fertile lands and an ocean that teemed with life, Chan Chan was once the largest city in South America. On its shore near the village of Huanchaco is a coveted surfing beach where caballitos de totora which translates to “little horses made of reed” are straddled and then surfed by the local fishermen.
To aid in maneuvering the vessels into the waves, a split and hollowed length of bamboo serves as a double ended paddle. 3,000 year old shards of painted pottery depict the unchanged design of these same famously photogenic reed boats. It’s not hard to imagine young, virile fishermen showing off to their peers and potential mates by standing on a caballito and skillfully paddle surfing it to shore!
Amazingly, caballito is a modern name for these handmade boats that predate the arrival of fifteenth century Spaniards and their horses by thousands of years.
Fast forward to seventeenth century Venice, the magnificent Italian city that’s built almost entirely on the water. Eight to ten thousand gondoliers use long paddles to move their vessels through the crowded canals. Today, only about four hundred gondolas remain in service. They shuttle tourists and wedding parties through the beautiful city that remains steeped in mystery, romance and glorious water.
THE HAWAIIANS PIONEERED STAND UP PADDLING FOR FUN!
The first standup paddle surfers to surf for the sheer joy of flying down the line on a board are believed to be Hawaiian. Ancient Hawaiian islanders survived with nature, not because of nature. They called themselves keiki o ka’aina, literally “children of the land”.
The earth provided the islanders not only food and materials to build with, but a place of deep spiritual connection and playful recreation. Aina means “that which feeds”. The land, the sea and mankind were thought of as siblings born to the same parents at the beginning of time. As siblings of the sea, Hawaiians of all ages and sexes enjoyed playing together in the waves. Maka ’ainana is a term used to describe the common people, but it actually translates to “eyes of the earth”. Nature nourishes, and by custom, humans were to play with and protect their siblings, the land and the sea.
Though Hawaiians have probably been standup paddle surfing for centuries, the earliest photographic evidence is only about 60 years old. Duke Kahanamoku, the most famous of the Waikiki beach boys, was said to use an outrigger paddle to help propel his heavy board into the velvety waves of Waikiki.
Two other Hawaiians beside Duke are often named as the first. Young John “Zap” Zapotocky, born in 1918 had moved to Oahu from the Mainland in 1940. After a few years of working at Pearl Harbor, the Dole Pineapple Cannery hired him as a machinist. A family man loved for his community involvement, Zap also became a dedicated waterman.
He was one of the few non-native Hawaiians to be named as an honorary Beachboy by his surfing brothers. Zap had admired how Duke and a few of the other Beachboys used a paddle to help themselves surf more effectively. In the 1940’s Zap began to include a canoe paddle in his own morning routine of surfing out at Waikiki.
He didn’t stop using the paddle as he surfed for the next 60 years. Dorian “Doc” Pascowitz said at John Zapotocky’s memorial on 10/29/13. “Please remember that this, the biggest, greatest development in the sport of wave riding of the last 1,000 years is the result of the passion, the effort and the aloha of John “Zap” Zapotocky.’
John “Pops” Ah Choy was born in 1920 in ‘O’okala on the Big Island, but raised his own family on Oahu. Pops was an inventor, the father of six and one of the others most mentioned as the first to surf with a paddle. Pops constantly tinkered with homemade ideas. He created a board wagon that he (or one of his surfing sons) could use to easily haul 8 heavy boards weighing nearly 100 pounds each, from home to Kuhio beach.
He also designed leg leashes, skateboards and a chair with suction cups which allowed him to fish while sitting on his board. As failing knees made it difficult for Pops to pop up on a surfboard, he began to carry a canoe paddle out to help him surf the waves. Standing between sets also greatly improved his vantage as a photographer. Taking photos of tourists was yet another skill Pops used to help feed his large family.
In Southern California, the cradle of modern surfing, the Wedge at Newport Beach is hallowed ground. Last summer, when Hurricane Marie brought California’s biggest waves in a decade, the Wedge reached mythical proportions. One city official estimated that 4,000 people gathered to watch surfers brave the 25-foot faces.
A cat-five hurricane provided the fuel in that case, but most of the Wedge’s might is man-made. Alterations to Newport Harbor in 1936 accidentally created one of America’s premier waves and most dangerous bodysurfing spots. Swells bounce off the jetty and combine with incoming sets at a 45-degree angle, making a double wave that breaks against the shore in a cavernous barrel called a “rebound” wave.
The Wedge, once famously described by a local as “the closest thing to the great trauma of being born,” is the world’s quintessential example of a rebound wave. But it isn’t the country’s only one. In fact, many straight piers can naturally enhance waves, insofar as they alter beach topography. Waves peak reliably on either side of them, and a rip current underneath helps surfers paddle out. But the piers don’t typically create a mechanism for waves to actually break better, as the Wedge does.
The only other epic rebound wave in the country is in Florida’s Sebastian Inlet, or First Peak, an East Coast surfing mecca responsible for shaping the talent of locals like Kelly Slater and the Hobgood brothers. Here, about 40 miles south of Cocoa Beach, Florida, a jetty juts out at the perfect oblique angle to reflect waves into a rebound, even though recent construction has diminished its power.
Photo: The First Peak Project
The Wedge and First Peak were both built accidentally. Now a group of Floridians want to mimic that phenomenon in the world’s first intentional enhanced-surf arena. And the payoff for the area—and its surfers—could be huge.
In January 2013, Mayor Dave Netterstrom and a handful of Cocoa Beach residents proposed the construction of a new 1,300-foot city pier that, if built, would be the longest in the East Coast. This month, Tim Chastain, who runs eco-tours in Cocoa Beach and came up with the original idea, wrote a detailed proposal for the structure. Though his proposal doesn’t include a finished design, Chastain said the discussion could include experimental surf enhancements. Two local surfers and coastal engineers, John Hearin and Justin Enjo, whose company Wave Loch builds artificial waves, suggested back in October 2013 that they could make the pier the first intentionally-built wave-enhancing surf stadium in the world.
“Why not do something truly unique and build the first pier that’s designed for surf enhancement?” says Hearin, who also works as a professor of marine and environmental systems at the Florida Institute of Technology. “But the devil is in the details.”
There are currently two possible designs under discussion. The first is fairly straightforward: The concrete pier would extend in a straight line perpendicular to the shore, designed to withstand hurricanes. It would serve as a linear surfing stadium with spectators—much like those at the Huntington Beach Pier—lining its rails to watch competitions.
The second idea goes a step further. It outlines a plan for an unprecedented “dog-legged” construction of a three-part pier. The first and third segment will be perpendicular to shore, but the middle part, lined with siding made from aluminum grating, will sit at an oblique angle to the north to reflect swell into a “rebound” wave, just like at the Wedge or Sebastian Inlet. Designers would space the pilings closer together to close the surface, and would introduce a sabellariid worm, called “Worm Rock” that would attach itself to the siding, turning it into a living reef. This would provide habitat for fish and crustaceans and bounce swell off the wall.
Photo: The First Peak Project
It would work like this: When a set approaches the pier, it will hit the sandy bottom and peak. The waves will then reflect off the walled section of pier and alter the angle at which swell hits the beach. Most of Florida is beach break, where swell comes straight on and “closes out,” or breaks parallel to the beach all at once. It’s pretty much impossible to surf. Thanks to the innovative pier, waves would roll in at a 45-degree angle in a peeling, continuously breaking manner. The reflected wave wouldn’t necessarily be bigger, but heavier and more powerful, creating barrels instead of weak, crumbling waves. The result: perfect surfing.
As great as the design would be for surfers, Chastain fears the excess cost could prevent the pier project (which isn’t exclusively about surfing) from gaining traction with the city.
“Any surfing enhancement is experimental,” he says. “And an experimental pier puts your project at risk.” Chastain is wedded to the idea of a pier, but he doesn’t think the additional surf enhancements are necessarily worth the extra money. The radical design could put funding in jeopardy. And why go overboard when a pier will already enhance surfing, at least to some extent? “When you think of where you are as a Floridian, it’s piers,” he says. “It’s where you can drop your kids off at a safe place. It’s old Florida.”
Engineers in Florida are hesitant to throw money into wave enhancements, as they are notoriously expensive. A 2008 artificial reef plan in Brevard County was scuttled due to a $5 million initial cost. It’s a risky undertaking.
But Enjo, with Wave Loch, doesn’t think wave enhancement would be a major additional cost, and it could be a huge economic boon for the city. The Surfrider Foundation studied the economic benefits of Trestles, a break in California, and valued it at $26 million a year. A similar study by the Save the Waves Coalition valued Maverick’s, the big wave spot in Half Moon Bay, California, at $23.8 million a year. “Our philosophy is we can prove this market exists,” Enjo says. “The challenge is convincing the non-surfing governance to get into it.”
But a region needs high-quality waves to attract the tourist volume of places like Hawaii, Indonesia, and California. There’s a direct correlation between wave quality and what tourists are willing to spend, Enjo says. It comes down to creating a wave that can become a marketable resource. “It’s a really exciting emerging market,” Enjo said. “High quality surfing waves are in high demand. Even hyper demand.”
Right now, the proposal is still in limbo and will take years to move into a building stage. The pier is estimated to cost around $9 million and would bring an estimated $1,650,000 annual benefit to the area, according to Chastain’s proposal, serving as a community hub for fishing, surfing, shopping, and walking. But it’s pending an application process, public comment, and construction of a physical model. A 2008 feasibility study downplayed the financial benefits of surfing, Enjo believes, because very little surfing economic data was available at the time. But now there’s plenty of evidence to support how lucrative a world-class wave can be.
“I think the Wedge is a good example,” Enjo says. “But the Wedge only works on a really big summer swell. So it has a narrow user base. In Cocoa Beach, there would be year-round benefits.”
