Purely hypothetical
If I was to organise a retreat....
If I was to organise a retreat....
My upcoming solo practice/study retreat to Santorini has got me thinking.
Most retreats and workshops tend to revolve around a well known teacher. You go there to learn/benefit from the teacher's experience, to have your practice tweaked, your alignment perhaps, get some help with postures your struggling with, perhaps be given new 'poses'.
Then there are workshops that focus on a particular aspect of practice, floating, back bending, arm balances etc. I'm going to one of Richard Freeman's workshops myself later in the year that has that kind of a format, I'm looking forward to it.
On the 'holiday' I'm going on next week though, the idea is just to have more time for my practice. On my regular day off I get to practice longer, I tend to practice for around three or four hours in the morning (this includes full pranayama etc) and then another two or three hours in the evening, the rest of the day I tend to read/study or perhaps work up a more detailed blog post that I've had in mind, it's a kind of a yoga day. The idea of the holiday is to have time to practice like that, not once a week on my day off but fourteen days in a row ( a month, three would be nice).
I don't have to make compromises in my practice, I can take as long as I want in postures, repeat them, do variations and still have time for long shoulder stands and headstands, longer savasanas and full sessions of pranayama, a decent sit. In the past, in the evening session, I tended to do a mini 'home workshop' session on back bending or arm balancing, tic tacks say or something else I wanted to work on separately from my regular practice.
I can chant for a while and take the time to improve my regular meat and veg chants or work on/learn new ones. I can get stuck into an area of the sutras I'm not as familiar with or different commentaries and compare them or some other text. And I can take more time and thought over what I'm eating.
It got me thinking...
What if there was a retreat like that.
Say I booked two rooms somewhere in Greece say (this is purely hypothetical) , one of the islands perhaps a larger practice room and then a quieter room, not for 'finishing' but for pranayama and meditation.
We have the rooms available all day, all night. there are no 'practice times' you go in and practice when you want for as long as you want then practice some pranayama and or meditate, again for as long or as often as you want or not, entirely up to you.
There could be some optional reading groups, pick a text or two at the beginning of the retreat, decide on the time best suited to everyone to that would fit around each others practice and just meet up and read through and discuss the text.
Perhaps some pranayama and practice groups where we could look at different approaches to pranayama, meditation that we might like to try out in our own practice.
Perhaps a discussion session at the beginning on practice where we could offer the odd hour here and there to lead a 'regular workshop' session on some aspect of practice. I could offer something on Vinyasa Krama variations , you might be good at back bending and happy to offer a mini 'master or rather peer class'. Sid might be happy to offer something on pranayama, we could all lead a session in how we approach meditation.....is this getting too hippyish?
Rest of the time you could be sociable or not, 'quiet' tables where you could eat in silence and others where you could get together...perhaps a quiet reading room.
I like this idea
Feel free to add and develop this idea, maybe we or somebody else will set it up sometime.
Or what if it wasn't a retreat, but a yoga shala, a nondenominational, kind of Mysoreish space where anyone could come along and practice what they wanted for as long as they wanted, how they wanted....
10 comments:
I think your retreat idea sounds very tempting. Just the idea of having some space and the time to practice with very little 'organised' sounds good to me. Low cost and 'organic' to further abuse an already over-worked word.
My own practice time is a good deal less than yours. I try to do something every day, but twice we week that is a gym session so the 'yoga' is simply that I have a much longer and slightly odd-looking stretching routine compared to most guys at the gym. One session is often swimming with a few asana and meditation in the sauna/spa afterwards. One session will be a 90 min full-on sweaty led asana class. The others will be home practices which I alternate between Astanga primary and a VK style slower, more a la carte approach, often with seated meditation. All of this is yoga heresy of course. But the think is that it seems to work for my body. I always fear that going on a retreat that was intensive on one system or another would just end up with my injuring myself.
The idea is good and enticing. I see such a retreat appealing to advance pratictioners though, in that you need to have developed your own practice before you can enter the sort of 'self-regulated' environment you'd create. But it would be lots of fun.
I struggled with the same doubts and last year I organised a mini-workshop over the weekend, mostly for my students, whereby we explored different yoga schools, especially vinyasa-related. So I invited a few yoga teacher friends, and we had ashtanga (Marcello), dynamic flow (Jeff), viniyoga (me), and yin (me). It was very appreciated and although my original plan was more grandiose and I had to rescale it due to initially low attendance, it went well. You can check the original plan here www.yoga-evolution-and-tradition.com...
In terms of my own practice I tend to do the pranayama and meditation with my students, so ca 20 min three times a day on average, and I tend to do longer sessions during weekend. My asana practice generally includes tadasana, trikonasana and its parivrttis, parsvottanasana, jathara parivrtti, dwipadapitham, urdhva dhanurasana, apanasana, sirsasana, adhomukha svanasana. Generally on weekends. There are some asanas like sarvangasana which I tend to loathe and therefore occasionally explore in more detail to understand why the energy seems so wrong for me. Sometimes I have challenges for myself, things I tend to fear like dropping down into viparita dandasana from sirsasana etc. And on tamasic days I go for the primary series... so a bit of what I feel I need, really!! I try to really prioritise breathing, long inhales and exhales and the mini-pauses inbetween, whatever I am doing, and monitor why it changes with some of the asanas
Hi Grimmly! I think your 'purely hypothetical' retreat sounds great. Just to get away and spend some time with like-minded individuals extremely appeals to me. Something which could also work is having little 'peer workshops' where individuals who'd like to teach a little sequence or share some knowledge could have the opportunity. Retreats are extremely expensive these days, although I'm really looking forward to going back to Portugal in 3 weeks time to www.ashtanga-vinyasa-yoga.co.uk to practice with Peter and Sue who are great teachers. It's in the middle of no-where and very basic so really brings you back down to earth. I went last year and cried when I came back. Eve the sound of a flushing loo upset me greatly...! (They have a compost toilet :)
I think this is a fan tas tic idea! Fantastic!
Hi Mike
Something i like about the Mysore idea is that you just come and do your own practice and everybody is at a different point in their practice. The draw back to it is that it's just ashtanga and on the whole there;s the 'official' approach or that particular shala's approach that you pretty much have to go along with. I like the idea of having the space where anyone can go and do their own practice whatever that practice might be, some days you may want to practice more intensely than others as in your practice, thanks for sharing that btw.
of course some may ask why not just practice at home, it suits me but i know some like the group energy or find that it helps their own self disciplin.
Hi Chiara.
I don't know about 'advanced' but I take your point about needing to have developed a practice of some kind before you go. Although there could be a couple of peer introductory classes with some basics.
For me I guess i would want somebody to have a handful of simple asana with a focus on the breath, you can stay longer in those asana, repeat them and it can be taught in an hour and would be something to be going on with. In some ways, if a few simple postures is all you have then it might be a good thing, all you's have is the breath to worry about, not a bad thing. Sometimes i think we end up with too many asana.
Love that you tried something like this and have had a quick look at your link, hope you get to try it again.
Nice that you get to do your pranayama and meditation with your students. When I teach ( only have two students and one of those is my wife) I pretty much practice along with them so that would work for me too.
Find it interesting how we end up adapting our practice.
The peer workshops seem a great idea. The great thing is that with no "official' teacher your not paying anybody a teaching fee, so it's cheap, in return you offer to share a little of your retreat time in peer sharing workshops. It could work. krishnamacharya said he taught to find out what he knows, so doing a little peer sharing can be beneficial in allowing you to reflect on aspects of your own practice.
Thanks for doing the questionnaire on your blog, interesting to see somebody work through it, will head over later (probably after work) and leave a couple of comments.
Will have a look at your link to the portugal site
I've come back to this idea a couple of times Claudia, first time around I was thinking of the kind of shala situation I'd like now I'm seeing it as a retreat idea. I think sometime or other I'm going to have to try it out, shouldn't be that hard to organise.
Of course it depends on what your used to, some want adjustments or to be taught new postures.
Like. Wanted to be lazy and just press the like button but thought I'd drop by for a decent reply.
Like very much. A kind of NPRetreat. A gathering. Have thought of doing something similar like that here, just a chance for people to practice togehter, have enough time and freedom of mind to explore and to be in a natural setting with poeple on the same page...
Love the quiet table idea too. It's great to talk but sometimes you just want to eat in silence, chew something over with food.
I'd be soooooo up for this. Greece too cold in Dec/Jan?
I like the idea of no teacher, no class, silent practice and then discussion times. A time to deepen, hone, explore.
Like like like.
Looking for a good excuse to go to greece. Have some friends and relative there too.
LIKE
Sooooo, that'll be a LIKE then エスタ : )
Every time i read a comment on this post i start fantasising about making it happen, definitely going to have to try and organise it some time or other.
I lived in a cave in Crete for a couple of months over December/January, couple of times in fact. Looking at the pictures i'm wearing sweaters most of the time but do remember skinny dipping and walking up the beach starkers back to the cave. So cold but not too cold. that said many of the workshops I've seen pictures of from Sissy in Crete have everyone wearing big wooly socks.
I it should be at a time when the weather is good. if it's cold or wet everyone will be inside and it might all become a bit claustrophobic, like the idea that everyone feels free to come and go, practice when and how they want, pop down to the beach and practice there if they want.
oops late for work,
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