One thing I never wanted to abandon was my yoga community. But over the many months of the pandemic, yoga classes have been mostly online and outdoor classes were few and far between where I lived for most of this public health crisis.

Since the pandemic started, I took up resistance training. I’ve done a few online yoga classes here and there, but I’m just not a big fan of trying to make space in my small apartment for my mat and trying to get my zen on when my upstairs neighbors are running back and forth right above my head. I’ve spiced yoga moves into my resistance training sessions since my body desperately needs the stretching and the release, but I went from doing in-person yoga four or five times a week to almost not at all.

I took part in my first in-person yoga class in nearly a year. It was socially distanced yoga on the beach and even with all my writerly powers, I can hardly describe how incredible the experience was. This reentry into the world of yoga reminded me of why I practiced so seriously for nearly two years before the start of the pandemic.

Practicing on the sand feels incredibly natural.

The sand is a surprisingly comfortable surface to practice on. It’s soft, it’s malleable, and it almost feels like it’s embracing you in certain poses. You can mold it around your body or use it to make certain poses more comfortable. It can also help you challenge yourself if you do want to make certain poses a little harder, too.

The simple novelty of practicing yoga in such a different setting is fun, too. Most of my studios have very hard and firm floors, which is certainly important for practicing certain poses safely. However, abandoning that firmness of a normal floor and mat for a beach towel and sand is delightful and liberating.

The sound of crashing waves is soothing.

The sound of crashing waves is the perfect yogic soundtrack. Beaches are busy places in the summer, so the ocean might not be the only thing you hear, but it makes a beautiful soundtrack to your practice. It’s easy to calm your thoughts and tune out any random noises when listening to the soothing sound of waves crashing against the shoreline.

Through the pandemic, the beach is one thing that I didn’t let escape me. In 2020, I did three things outside: grocery shopping, hiking, and beach days. I’ve been a dutiful observer of social distancing and I would make it a point to go at non-peak times and always wear my mask. But even with those constraints, I still visited the beach last summer.

Since I’ve moved around so much and had 8 different apartments in the last 5 years, I never really feel truly at home anywhere. But when I’m at the beach and listening to the ocean, that’s the closest I get to feeling like I belong somewhere. With all that history and emotion wrapped up into the sound of crashing waves, it made yoga on the beach feel almost like a homecoming.

The comments people walking by make might just make you laugh.

This might be annoying for some people, but I find it hilarious. You get a lot of beachgoers saying things like “look, they’re doing… yoga.” Some people sound perplexed and look at you like you’re crazy. Some sound curious and seem like they want to try themselves. Either way, you’re doing you and getting your practice in.

Just today, I had a pretty funny moment. I had my eyes closed and didn’t bother twisting my head to look at a couple passing by and talking. The man did not sound like he was a big fan of yoga.

“Look at that girl, she’s covered in sand! Sucks to be her.”

My first thought was just, “You have no idea.”

I knew the comment was directed at me because I did get very excited about the sand. I ventured off of my towel and started doing things in the sand just because it felt good on my skin. It was soft, warm, and relaxing. I was getting absolutely coated in the stuff, but I was actually in my glory, baking like a fine clay pot in the summer sunlight.

Did I look silly? Yes!

Did I care? Not in the slightest! I don’t go to the beach to be clean.

The simple joy of being outside can enhance your practice.

So many of my yoga teachers have told me about how traditionally, yoga was practiced outdoors, at dawn. Learning about the history of traditional yoga is always really enlightening for me since so much of the depth of the practice is lost in modern, Westernized renditions of it.

While not all outdoor experiences are perfectly blissful, there are a lot of things to enjoy about actually being outside when doing poses like tree.

The sensation of wind whispering over you and the warmth of the sun on your skin are simultaneously relaxing and invigorating. It’s soothing, it’s natural, and it brings the overall rejuvenating effects of a yoga class even stronger.

Jumping in the ocean afterward is the most refreshing conclusion to a challenging practice.

When I’m working to improve my practice, I will try to work through poses and challenge myself with their more advanced forms. I’ll also try to make all the little modifications that help me to improve my alignment and balance. Long story short, I get pretty sweaty, whether it’s a vinyasa class or an ashtanga class.

The sensation of getting hot and sweaty after a good, challenging practice then jumping into the cool, refreshing ocean water is incredible.

The silver lining of settling for at-home resistance training is that I am a lot stronger than I was before. I was slowly building up strength in my ashtanga practice, but it was very gradual. Thanks to a few months of resistance training, I’m able to own chair pose and do a proper chaturanga like never before. It’s exciting. Putting that new strength to work on the beach (and admittedly getting pretty sweaty doing it) was one of the best ways I could have possibly reentered my yoga practice.

Though things are far from being normal yet, I’m hoping to keep finding outdoor classes that make it easy and safe to stay socially distanced. Even though I’m vaccinated, I’m still trying to mask up and be as careful as I can with possible breakthrough infections. But even so, I plan to attend more beach yoga classes, more classes in parks, and make reigniting my practice a big part of my reentry into reality.