The key to excellence is repetitive practice. In the ideal world we would all have an hour and a half every morning to devote to our asana practice. We would have eaten light dinners the night before, gotten the necessary hours of sleep, have the energy and the inspiration to practice the same asanas for the millionth time. But every single yoga practitioner knows that there are more bad than good asana practice days. And that’s the method of any spiritual practice. Will you commit with no hopes of a return on commitment?
Every year Iyengar practitioners from around the world make their way to Pune, India to immerse themselves in the practice. Every year I await eagerly for the 4 weeks where I will be able to ‘retreat’ from the rigors of my regular life and give undivided attention to my practice. I usually have a reading list, I introspect through journaling and blogging, and I learn from the experiences of other students.
Retreating is an important part of a spiritual practice. It is to introspect as much as it is to delve deeper into the practice of your choice.
Retreating is an important part of a spiritual practice. It is to introspect as much as it is to delve deeper into the practice of your choice. A learning curve happens after every retreat. I have experienced the greatest growth after every retreat and workshop I’ve attended.
Teaching a retreat is as exciting for the teachers as it is for the students. When the idea of this retreat was a mere spark of an idea, we wondered what we could do to make this retreat unique, fun and helpful for those giving us the privilege of teaching them. We came up with a rough outline of a schedule. We started to think of how we could bring life and relevance to the teachings and the days slowly took shape. Involved as we are in our own practices, the results of a collaboration between Suzanne and I will distinctive.
Our mornings will be spent studying the asanas, in which we will also discuss the Indian/Hindu mythology pertaining to yoga. Our evening sessions will be about winding down the mind and body. There will be walks through the town, swims in the creeks. Conversations over shared dinners and the occasional glass of wine!
It will be a special time for all of us, made more special by those who give us the opportunity to guide them. We hope you can make yourselves available from the 1st-8th of June to join us in Liguria, Italy for a retreat to remember.
Write in to susanne.mayer@yogawest.de or pragya.bhatt@gmail.com for more details.
[This are article has also been published at https://yogaliguria2019.blogspot.com/2019/02/why-retreat.html. You can find more information about the upcoming retreat in this link.]
of young girls, but he had a huge farm with banyan trees and lakes, horses, a humungous collection of music and great food. The night we reached we stayed up late into the night talking to our host and getting to know each other (and to some extent getting to know ourselves better too). The next day we hiked up a mountain post a cup of coffee and returned famished to a breakfast of simple local fare. We talked, read, listened to music, talked some more, had a huge breakfast and before we knew it, it was time to leave. The time we spent at the farm really made me think about the kinds of lives we lead. Lives largely revolving around traffic (pollution) or food (junk). Whatever little time I spent at the farm reinforced a few ideas that I already had about life, but in the hustle bustle of daily life, we tend to forget. The four simple truths that were reinforced for me during my stay at the farm are:
