Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.
-- John Muir (1942)
I did my first yoga retreat this weekend in lovely and quaint Amagansett. At first, I was a bit unsure about the experience, as I’ve never done something like this before. Though I must say, I was more than pleasantly surprised! I’ve been practicing yoga for almost three years now, ever since Pure Yoga opened up in the Upper East Side. However, I’ve never done an immersive workshop like this, and had no idea that so many of my poses were wrong!
That’s the great thing about doing a full-on yoga retreat like this – you get a lot more one-on-one attention from the instructors, which forces you to truly work on your alignment and posture. It’s also a good opportunity for me to work on aspects which I’ve always shirked from, such as head stands, shoulder stands, and any other form of inversion!
Being away from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan also has the perks of encouraging some solitude, accompanied by self introspection on my part… and what better place to do so than under this perfect, relaxed setting? (Of course, by pure happenstance, I realize that this would also mark my second weekend in a row spent in the Hamptons. Seems a bit indulgent, but what can you do!).