10 minute read
YOGA RETREAT
IHAVE ALWAYS wanted to go on a yoga retreat to see if I could learn how to feel calmer and less scattered in my thinking. A tall order! So I was delighted to be invited by husband and wife team Neil and Jenny from Optimum You Yoga Studio in Market Harborough to their Inspiration for Mind and Body retreat in the Lake
District.
I was a little nervous on my journey because, even though ’ve attended yoga classes on and off over the years
I wouldn’t consider myself a regular. That didn’t matter.
One of the many ‘take-away’ nuggets of wisdom of the weekend, and there were plenty, was that practising yoga is a ourney and everyone is on a different leg of that ourney here’s no benefit from comparing yourself to others ust concentrate on yourself, your body and your breath.
Ah, the breath. This is the over-arching element to yoga.
Breathing fully, deeply and with intent is what pushes the prana, or life force, around the body to make space for that energy to move into areas that need it. And to eliminate waste that isn’t required. As one of the yoga teachers observed: ‘We’ve all been breathing since the day we were born, but not many of us have got it right.’ Without breathing, yoga is just stretching. And a retreat is the perfect place to learn how to fully breathe. It’s also a chance to take time out for yourself away from the stresses of work and family and meet like-minded people who are also there to silence the busy internal chatter and learn how to improve their physical and mental wellbeing. And you have the whole weekend, with no time restraints or having to rush off after class
Jenny and Neil ran Hotpod Yoga in Leicester for three years then created their new studio in Market Harborough ust a few months before the first loc down ot to be deterred, and because they both wholeheartedly practice what they preach, Jenny used the time positively to research beautiful locations for retreats they wanted to offer ‘We love what we do ’ enny told me ‘ nd we want to share the benefits of yoga and what we’ve learnt with others. Either daily in our studio or on retreat.’
They’d already run retreats in the UK and Koh Phanghan in Thailand where they collect you from the ferry and take care of you all week, introducing you to the island, its cuisine and, of course, a multitude of yoga practices. They have planned a whole range of retreats, and it’s best to look on their website for more details but so far they include a meditation retreat in November in the Peak District; a summer reset in June 2022 where the accommodation will be in luxury treehouses and converted barns in East Sussex. There’s a wild woman retreat in Wales in July and the next Thailand trip is booked for Spring 2023. There’s talk of a detox retreat early next year which will include juices and raw food and energetic yoga classes to get the prana flowing
The food is provided by Yasmina Cherquaoui from Comptoir V, a plant based restaurant chain in London. She runs it with her brother and is gathering quite a following. I can see why! When you ask Yasmina what’s in each dish, she reels off a list of ingredients many of which haven’t even heard of. The key to her food is that it’s super healthy but pac ed full of taste from the different herbs and spices the raw elements that are in every dish to aid digestion, and the sheer inventiveness of her cooking. Hot favourites of the weekend were the lemon and coconut protein balls, the spiralised rainbow salads, the avocado and nut cheesecake and, of course, the restaurant’s signature dish of vegan dynamite shrimps made with Japanese konjac and sea kelp, lightly fried in tempura butter.
We did laugh and say the weekend consisted of activities between food, but one central aim for Jenny and Neil is the idea of ‘holding space’ for their clients over the weekend and nourishing them in mind, body and spirit. I can safely say that is how I felt; very much nourished by the whole team, who each took their turn to impart their knowledge and kindness.
ltogether we did seven different yoga classes We started with a restorative session on the riday night to settle us after fraught ourneys hen a vinyasa class to wa e us up on the Saturday morning o-one was ever made to feel obliged to ta e part in all or any of the activities so if am was too early we could easily have stayed in bed didn’t want to miss a thing so was up far more brightly than usual enny and ate their guest teacher) are nowledgeable about all things yoga and throughout each class they drip fed us with wise observations tried to imprint on my brain opefully some of them will have gone in and if not only need to attend the wee ly classes bac at home and ’m sure regular e posure to them will allow these pearls to seep in and stay Some classes are still online so are easily accessible from home fter the morning class and brea fast we had a group session each day with eil who is a motivational life coach for corporate and private clients his was so inspiring because not only do you get eil’s e perience but you can carry on the group discussions all over the wee end nd that was one of the wonders of the retreat how much fun is to be had getting to now complete strangers although many had come with friends or as couples) and hearing their stories s eil said ‘we’re all storytellers and that’s how we learn ’ We spent one evening toasting marshmallows around the fire after a yin yoga class which was a fun way to come together as a group
Scotty another life coach friend and local to the area too us on a hi e into the woods above oniston a e primarily to en oy the view and fresh air but en route he had us slowing down through different tas s and narrowing our focus to fully ta e in what was right there around us instead of rushing along with a single-minded purpose s he says ‘normally the solution to our problems is there in front of us if we choose to loo rather li e a doc leaf will be somewhere in the vicinity of a clump of nettles ’ oing on retreat allows you to try things you’d never normally do be that paddleboarding and la e swimming or learning alternate nostril breathing or e periencing a sound bath combined with yoga nidra ying in the yoga studio wrapped in a blan et with a deeply resonating singing bowl vibrating on my stomach is one e perience ’ll never forget nother was the hai yoga massage given to me by ac ui a local a es’ yoga teacher and artist She used her body to perform yoga on me pushing my body into stretches ’d resist on my own chec ing in all the time for any discomfort he ‘chec ing in’ process was a constant during the wee end We were encouraged during our asanas to chec for tension in the eyebrows do you realise how often we frown ) in the aw teeth and shoulders n the first evening was about to ta e a paracetamol to get rid of a tension headache ow ridiculous! fter an hour and a half of yoga listening to enny’s melodious voice my headache had completely disappeared hree days later wo e up to find was lying longer in bed iterally longer my body seemed to have stretched felt taller stronger and fitter ’d been shown what my body was capable of ’d held poses far longer than before ’d been introduced to different yoga practices ’d been enlightened by many discussions during and after the coaching sessions and ’d made friends n the ourney home made a conscious choice to raise my chest and ‘heart space’ so my internal organs had more room to do their obs and ept coming bac to my breath breathing freely for the first time in a long while
We all need a reset and a chance to shift our thin ing ma ing choices about what we want more or less of in life now after this wee end want to eat more healthily and definitely to ta e regular yoga classes lso to concentrate on my breathing particularly when stressed and to go on annual retreat he problem is places are boo ing up fast
For more details visit www.optimumyouyoga.com www.absolutebusinesscoaching.co.uk
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