Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure to lead a group of women on a retreat. Our location: the Lake Superior shoreline, with a beach side yurt for overnight accommodations. Our goal? Reconnect with ourselves in body, mind, and spirit.
Our day started at the Bay Furnace camp ground with an out-of-comfort-zone HIIT-style workout. Two of us were used to this style of workout, while for the others, this was brand new territory. I designed what I called the "$5.00 Workout": if you had a penny for every rep performed, at the end of the workout you'd have five bucks. Yay! Here it is if you'd like to try: 100 squats/ 100 speed skaters/ 75 sit ups/ 75 crunchy frogs/ 50 tricep plank dips/ 50 push ups/ 25 tuck jumps/ 25 burpees.
After a healthy lunch, we delved into a Yoga 101 talk, touching on the Eight Limbs of yoga, an introduction to chakras, yoga etiquette, and a review of basic yoga postures. And what happened next? Partner yoga poses on the beach (click on the photo below for a slide show)! The smiles and laughter were one of the best parts of the entire retreat.
Back to the yurt and more talk time, tapping into what keeps us going. We created mantras for ourselves, then created meditative mandalas to go along with them. This was easily the most intense part of the retreat, emotions and vulnerability all around. How do we bring back the ease and settle back into a groove? Beach walk to the Bay Furnace ruins, complete with barefoot icy water crossing.
A brief moment to warm up in the yurt, then back out to the beach for a gentle outdoor vinyasa flow practice. The sun broke through the clouds and shone down on us the entire practice, gentle breezes and warm sunshine making savasana extra sweet.
Springtime beach bonfire, dinner and more camaraderie rounded out the day, with a few of us spending the night in the yurt, continuing earlier conversations, dealing out our Karma Cards, sipping on wine.
Guiding the participants through each of the components of the day, asking questions to help them clarify their intentions and goals, and (of course) getting them to push past self-imposed barriers in regards to physical limitations was more rewarding than I can say. I'm proud of the work they did and of the work I did, too.
Here's to looking forward to the next retreat opportunity.