Posting of the Month - Yoga Retreats

Yoga Retreats

One retreat I go to regularly is Kirsten Agar Wards retreat at The Meditation Centre Flintergill, Dent, in Cumbria. Kirsten is a senior level 3 Iyengar yoga teacher. Teaching since the 1990s, Kirsten is hugely experienced, a joy to be taught by and to learn from.
 
I love Dent, cobbled streets, buildings dating from the 12th century, so much history there. It has a small population and is a 4 mile walk or cycle from the station if you are not a driver. This is a wonderful walk down narrow lanes through rolling farmland, unwinding, for lots of yoga!

The setting, for me, is ideal for becoming immersed in yoga practice.
This is something to think about when you choose a retreat.

• Is the retreat set somewhere you want be
• With a teacher you want to learn from?

Kirsten's retreat always starts with a welcome yoga class on the Friday night, then followed by 2/3 days of focused practice in the morning, with the afternoons to explore the area.
 
Each day starts at 7.30 am with an hour of quieter restorative work and pranayama then  a short break. We resume to practise for 4 hours on our asanas.

It may sound daunting, but yoga is incredibly absorbing and satisfying, and time goes quickly. Longer practice means more time to get into the posture, to experiment with it, and to gain a new understanding of our yoga asanas .
 
You also find that your head ‘lightens’, and lets you do this . There is a quiet atmosphere of concentration which comes from longer focused practice and also from the enjoyment of practice together.

We were working on getting a lovely spinal twist, with no compression, in Parivrtta Hasta Padangustasana - hand reaching to big toe with a spinal twist .

There weren’t enough surfaces, so we had to find our own. I seemed to find a snuggling fit into the kitchen work surfaces!

The benefits of the pictured asana:

• A strengthening of the legs, hips, muscles around the knees.
• A deeply opening stretch of the back of the thighs
• A lovely lengthening of the calf muscles with an opening stretch all around the hips

Opening up of the shoulders and the chest happens too, and in the end it feels like a complete work around the spine as though every muscle is being opened, and massaged from our yoga practice.

I would recommend going on a yoga retreat and I am happy to chat to anyone who wants to ask me about the retreats I enjoy. I’m sure our other yoga teachers, would be happy to do the same .

Enjoy!