Call of the Wild

Connect with nature and enjoy being challenged by the elements when you take your practice outside.

By Lauren Ladoceour

Imagine your hands cushioned by the soft loam under a grove of pine trees, your feet resting gently against a sturdy tree, as you revel in the strength and beauty of an outdoor Handstand. Then, ouch! Your finger presses into a sharp pebble you hadn't seen.

Practicing in the great outdoors is exhilarating, but it usually presents its fair share of challenges: changeable weather, bugs, uneven terrain. "When you're outdoors, the surface can be slippery, or it can be moving if you're on sand, but that's the real world," says Twee Merrigan, a Prana Flow Yoga teacher who is based in New York City but spends many weeks of the year practicing outside in remote and exotic settings. "It isn't always a perfect wood floor with incense and a teacher. Outside the yoga studio, if a challenge comes up, what are you going to do? Freak out? Instead of waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you figure it out for yourself," she says.

Which is why an outdoor practice can be a resource for nourishing your creativity and resilience."We were in India, and ants were crawling all over my mat and feet," recalls Merrigan. "I made a choice to respect them, focus enough to step around them, change my practice a little for them. If they're red ants, OK, you might want to move your mat. But generally you can just let them be. They'll crawl off, and you'll be OK."

Adopting an attitude of curiosity is the first step to enjoying a practice out of doors. Gillian Kapteyn Comstock, a yoga teacher who leads yoga-in-nature workshops at the Metta Earth Institute in Lincoln, Vermont, suggests exploring your environment with all five of your senses. "Experience soft grass or warm sand underfoot," says Comstock, who wrote the outdoor asana instructions featured here. "Feel the texture of a boulder with your hands in Half Downward-Facing Dog Pose, or the rough tree bark against an extended arm in Triangle Pose."

Then, try to let go of your ideas about what your yoga practice should look or feel like, and see what you encounter. "Give yourself permission to move from spot to spot to find the natural props you need," Comstock suggests. "Think of nature as a yoga partner, and suddenly a whole world of props opens up."

Observe the natural world: the smell of the air, the feel of the wind, the sound of the birds, the shifting shadows, and your ever-changing feelings of eagerness, happiness, pride, vulnerability, strength, exhaustion—whatever arises. Notice your reaction to it all.

Finally, let yourself be spontaneous and have fun. "I'll decide to go for a walk on the beach, and—I can't help myself—the walk turns into a 45-minute practice of free-flowing vinyasa yoga," Merrigan says. "Yoga in the outdoors is doing what's calling you. Anytime I'm in an open field, I go into arm balancing poses. The yoga doesn't even have to be advanced postures. I might be in Half Lotus with a mudra. Or doing an Earth salute, by laying on my belly on the grass. Or break into chanting or pranayama. There's no set program—just taking a breath and seeing what inspires you right now."

Instruction by Gillian Kapteyn Comstock

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