Dynamic. Fearless. Inspiring. Insightful. Healing. Spiritual. These words describe Rochelle Ballard, one of the greatest female professional surfers ever, a film and TV star from hits such as Blue Crush, Step Into Liquid and Beyond The Break. Rochelle is an educator, a successful entrepreneur, expert on yoga, healing, wellness, massage and more. She is a legendary big wave surfer, and has been instrumental in the growth of women’s surfing. And today, Rochelle is owner of Surf Into Yoga.
Surf Into Yoga offers Rochelle's clients a true healthful getaway on the spectacular Hawaiian island of Kauai. Rochelle organizes customized wellness and adventure retreats for visitors to the Garden Isle. The retreats give her clients a flexible way to try out a combination of healthy offerings with packages ranging from one day to a month or more as well as a la carte packages.
Rochelle Ballard's sunny personality and infectious energy are boundless.
At her studio in west Kauai, Rochelle offers yoga and massage to soothe her customers’ body and soul. In addition, she teaches athleticism, wellness and rehabilitation, helping her customers overcome emotional challenges, release stress and heal their chronic pains. Surf Into Yoga also offers spa treatments as well as delicious, healthy, organic custom meals prepared by expert chefs using the island’s incredible fruits, vegetables, seafood and more.
Rochelle can also arrange beach home rentals for clients, and offers massage and yoga services at The Club at Kukui’ula, the newest and perhaps most exclusive golf club and spa on Kauai.
Rochelle knows Kauai intimately, and is an expert guide to the island’s best adventures, including sailing, beaches, mountain trails and more. Working with Rochelle, clients can enjoy surfing lessons at the island’s best surf spots, hike on Kauai’s magical trails, go on a SUP run, sail along the Na Pali coast, or charter a fishing expedition.
What led her to create Surf Into Yoga? While competing worldwide on the women’s pro surfing tour, Rochelle applied her skills as a licensed massage therapist and her love of yoga (she is a Yoga Alliance certified instructor) to help other competitors and to recover from the physical demands and injuries of her sport. Focusing on living a healthy lifestyle, embracing wellness and yoga as a central part of her life has enabled Rochelle not just to succeed as an elite athlete, but also build an equally successful business built on her core beliefs. Her knowledge and abilities comes through her experiences through 20 years of athletic triumph, injury, recovery, and victory.
“Surf Into Yoga is a lifestyle,” explained Rochelle. “It’s an experience, based on an idea I created when I got off the world ASP surfing tour. I’ve taken my years of experience through surfing, dynamic movement as an athlete, learning to recover from injuries, learning wellness, learning good foods from bad foods, what works in the body and what doesn’t. I’ve learned from the facilitators who I’ve worked with over the years traveling the world, always looking for the best people to work with. Who’s the best trainer? The best massage therapist? The best chiropractor? The best nutritionist? How do I become the world champion and the best I can be? This learning process has been irreplaceable, something I had to experience.”
Rochelle’s expertise as a legendary pro surfer has her surfing sessions in high demand. She uses her years of surfing to teach the best times and locations for surfing Kauai. Because Rochelle knows the waters of Kauai so well, she can quickly help her customers step up their game. “From my pro surfing perspective, I help my customers be aware of what to do in the surf line-up when you’re out in the waves with the locals,” she said. “It helps prevent situations where one of my customers or someone else could get hurt, or where someone would have to rescue him. It makes surfing safer for everybody.”
Smiling, Rochelle added, “I had a customer tell me that he learned more in 15 minutes surfing with me than in all of his experiences as a surfer.”
Photo credit: Surf Into Yoga
For the past 10 years, Rochelle has apprenticed with massage facilitators and healers in the practice of ancient Hawaiian lomilomi, Chi Nei Tsang, polarity, deep tissue, aroma touch essential oils and reflexology. She applies these for deep release from toxins, inflammation, chronic pain, connective tissue emotional holds, and healing from generations of behaviors and patterns, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
With her expertise in yoga, massage therapy and a relaxation experience through scrubs and essential oils, it’s all bliss. In addition, Surf into Yoga offers therapeutic services to customers to heighten their senses, release stress, injury, and chronic pain, allowing their mind and body to be still and replenish their being.
Rochelle believes that healing comes from within our own desire to allow for change and growth. “The best form of healing comes from joy, laughter and gratitude,” she said. “Through forgiveness, prayer and meditation we can accept and acknowledge. Changing our habits, ways of thinking, eating, and movement allows my clients to create long lasting dynamic physical changes.”
When packaging her customized retreats, Rochelle emphasizes mind-body awareness and being in the moment. Instead of following a rigid schedule, Rochelle calls her customer the night before to let them know the plan for the following day. This flexible planning assures that her customers’ day will be spent at the best place, at the best time, taking advantage of the weather, the waves and time of year, gaining from the experience of a local expert.
“I’ve learned that if my customers attempt to be too organized, they miss out on the process of slowing down, of enjoying the moment and seeing where the wind takes you,” Rochelle said. “It’s very important to be in that place, because if you don’t, you never quite escape to your vacation. it will make the trip far more enjoyable. From my experience, letting go of control is often a great process – it will make your trip far more enjoyable. Invariably, my customers agree.”
Healthy nutrition is essential to Rochelle. So Surf Into Yoga offers the services of a wonderful chef with expertise in both sushi and French cuisine, someone who can also prepare wonderful organic meals.
“I recently organized a retreat combining a mix of amazing activities,” Rochelle said. “We went hiking in the mountains, and went straight down and surfed in the ocean in the mouth of Makai Bay. Another day, we did yoga and massage, and followed with a sushi-making class. It was epic! My customers weren’t just getting a basic sushi rolling class; my chef gave them a deep dive. He’s very good at what he does.”
To help her customers eat right, Rochelle can also do the shopping, stocking their refrigerator with the right healthy foods. Rochelle has high standards on taste and nutrition, and uses her knowledge of local foods to provide the best Kauai has to offer. Carefully reviewing her customer’s diet challenges beforehand, and working with them to prepare a diet plan based on choices, she offers suggestions on how to improve their diet.
Upon their arrival on Kauai, her customers receive a branded Surf Into Yoga survival kit including a logo water bottle, pareau, sarong, surfing rash guard, even a bikini. Her goal is to make sure her customers will have everything they need for their retreat. “That way, my customers can fly here and not worry about what to bring – it’s all here,” she said.
For customers who can’t travel to Kauai for a retreat, Rochelle will soon offer her services via a series of videos on surfing, how-to’s on nutrition, healing, wellness along with other ideas and experiences that she recommends. She will soon release Rochelle Rochelle, her sexy new active yoga wear and bikini apparel line. Quite simply, Rochelle’s imagination and energy are boundless.
Much of Rochelle’s holistic approach to Surf Into Yoga is embodied in her love of the ocean, surfing and nature. “I developed a love for surfing, a love that is almost impossible to express. There’s an energy in the water that gives you every kind of feeling: peace, excitement, fear, a huge adrenaline rush, discouragement, frustration. The nature of surfing is such that you can’t control the waves. You have to flow with them and find the rhythm of the ocean in order to work with it and experience what the ocean has to offer. Surfing is an art—we draw a new line on each wave we ride. It’s also a science. You need to study the patterns of the ocean. And it’s an ongoing lesson, because every few years, the tides completely change.”
“My goal with each of my customers is to teach them to get rid of their chronic pain through proper exercises and stretches, through better diet and ways of eating, doing the body work to release the pain blocks,” Rochelle said. “They may be coming from something that’s chronic, something that’s emotional, or from toxins. Those are usually the energy blocks they’re holding in their body. That’s my point of focus. I want my customers not just to feel better, but to apply their Kauai experience with me to improve their lives.”
Throughout her career, Rochelle has been adamant about giving back. She is heavily involved in supporting women’s surfing, youth development, environmental improvement and helping her local community. Among her many charitable activities, Rochelle works with the Living Life Source Foundation, a Hawaiian non-profit organization and healing center for wellness and sustainable living, (Pu’uhonua), and is a director with Aha Kai Aloha, a non-profit Hawaiian cultural surfing event on Oahu.
Rochelle is also a supporting team athlete for the Keep a Breast Foundation. Volunteering with the Mauli Ola Foundation on Oahu, Rochelle works with children afflicted with cystic fibrosis, and helped pro soul surfer Bethany Hamilton with the Make A Wish Foundation at Hanalei on Kauai’s North Shore. She has also hosted girls’ surf camps in Hawaii as well as the US west and east coasts for many years, helping develop surfing skills and inspiring education and wellness.
For Rochelle, having the opportunity to share her passion and energy to help our environment and surfing are just as rewarding as riding a great wave.
“Those are all the things that I love,” she said. “It’s easy for me to give that to people, because I truly respect and live for that. I’ve lived for the adventure. I’ve lived for the challenge. But I also love sitting in a hammock, listening to the wind and the birds. Coming from that perspective, I started with wellness. Every morning, I begin my day with yoga, to calm myself down and to focus, because I have a lot of fire, a lot of energy. To tune it into my water, to my center, it is important for me to find my breath, and move with my body so that I can concentrate and bring myself into focus. And that’s what I want to share with my clients on our retreats.”
Surf Into Yoga. It’s not just a retreat. It’s a complete lifestyle.
For more information:
Surf into Yoga
(808) 343-0616
http://surfintoyoga.com
Email: info@surfintoyoga.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Surf-Into-Yoga/104645146136
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