It's the end of another year already, here's a look back at the highlights of Happy Seal Yoga over the last year. To everyone who came along to class or an event, thank you!
January 1st 2022 was unseasonably warm at 14'C for our first class of the year, £60 profit from this session was donated to British Divers' Marine Life Rescue. We'll be back for more New Year's Day yoga at the star disk in Scarborough at 10:30am on January 1st 2023. This year's charity is the Andrew McGeown Legacy Fund which raises money to provide Swim Safe each summer in Bridlington & Scarborough, giving lifesaving skills to children aged 7-14.
Online yoga classes continued for the first few months of 2022 along with a 6 week online beginner's course. I really enjoyed delivering this, giving time to build slowly and go through the foundations of each pose working our way through to longer flows each week. The beginner's course is back for 2023 but this year we'll be doing it in person at the Buddhist centre in Scarborough on Monday evenings from 6:15 to 7pm.
The Buddhist centre became our Scarborough indoor venue after reopening at the end of February, having been closed for 2 years during the pandemic. As well as vinyasa flow we started a yin yoga class which is one of the highlights of my week.
With no lockdowns this year we were able to get back into the swing of yoga by the sea. Classes across all our locations ran from April until the end of September and early morning classes continued to the end of November. Filey switched from an evening class to early morning and what sunrises we've had - definitely a good decision! We've seen extremes of temperatures with classes running during the heatwave of late July. Whitby was 38 degrees - a temperature I never thought I'd see on the North Yorkshire Coast. Last Sunday in Scarborough the temperature was down to -1'C and we definitely needed lots of layers to keep comfortable.
The wildlife continues to drop by occasionally as we flow. Whitby got lucky with another dolphin display this summer, we also saw a friendly seal in Scarborough, had ducks pottering amongst the class in Sandsend, baby seagulls popping by in Whitby and friendly pups saying hello in all locations!
Over the summer I teamed up with Matt from thesurfcoach.co.uk to deliver surf sirens sessions exclusively for women. These surf evenings explored the natural physical connection between surfing and yoga, incorporating breath work and yoga flows to match up with each session's surfing goal.
Another favourite of mine for the summer were our SUP yoga classes early Sunday morning in South Bay, Scarborough. There is something magical about taking your yoga practise onto the water not to mention it being that little bit more challenging!
Over the course of the year I also hosted several sea swim safely sessions sharing my lifeguard and open water swim coach knowledge to give people more confidence to swim in the sea whilst making safe decisions about when to get in.
It was a busy year for events, teaming up once again with Scarborough Surf School at Cayton Bay to run Saltwater Soul surf yoga day in June. Hosting monthly clean ups for Planet Patrol following a yoga by the sea session. We returned to the Scarborough surf festival with a yoga by the sea class on the beach with the beautiful backdrop of the castle headland. This was possibly one of the windiest classes of the year with lots of flapping mats adding to the challenge!
At the end of September we hosted our first event with Coast & Camplight - Harvest Moon Firelight yoga, the campfire was lit and while we hoped to flow as the sun set over the moors, the rain had other ideas. Instead we headed into the 'Parashala' a wonderful calm space which looked out onto the fire, while guests took part in a moon inspired flow followed by a relaxing session of Yoga Nidra (yogic sleep). I'm excited to be bringing more yoga events to Coast & Camplight in 2023.
To celebrate the summer solstice we had a sunrise yoga class on Cayton Bay at 4:15 in the morning, and what a sunrise - it was certainly worth getting up for!
Finally to finish off the year we have just celebrated the winter solstice with another sunrise yoga by the sea class this time in Filey and we didn't have to get up quite so early with sunrise at 08:20. Luckily the weather stayed dry and while we didn't get a spectacular sunrise as a bank of cloud was sitting over the horizon we did see some lovey light shining on the clouds above.
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year for 2023, looking forward to sharing lots more with you next year.