Feldis

It's already been a while but I started my year with a slightly longer yoga weekend in Feldis. This time I already left the grey city of Zürich on Thursday because the retreat started on Thursday evening with one of my favourite ways of doing yoga - a joint session between Katharina and Pascal Gamboni, a local singer who accompanies the yoga with his guitar and voice.

I shared my room with Eveline and thanks to her we had the luxury of our own bath and a stunning view over the snow and the mountains.

On Friday we started with an early medidation session and then 2 more hours of yoga. Then we had time to relax or to go outside and enjoy the snow and the blue sky. Of course we chose the second option, it was too beautiful outside to even consider staying in.

We took the chairlift up to Mutta and there we took the round trail which gave us so many amazing views to capture. We also walked down along the toboggan trail back to Feldis and I wished we'd have brought our sledges.

On Saturday the weather had changed and it was snowing quite heavily. We took it slowly in the morning but then I really needed to be outside, so I took a sledge and took the chairlift up the mountains all by myself. It was pretty adventurous, especially because I could barely find the trail in the fog but I felt so good to be outside.

Ibiza and Formentera

Right before our spring holidays I got two weeks of extra holidays. I went to Ibiza by myself for a week and then I took the ferry to Formentera where I spent a week filled with yoga, sunshine, bicycle rides, beach, great food and lovely people.

 Ibiza - Sant Antonin

Ibiza - Cala Comte

Formentera - Platja Ses Illetes

 me

 

Ibiza - Es Vedra

 Ibiza - Eivissa

Formentera

 Formentera - Platja de Migjorn

 Formentera - La Hazienda

 Formentera - Platja Ses Illetes

  Formentera - Platja Ses Illetes (again)

 Formentera - Es Pujols

  Formentera - Sunset at La Hazienda

 Formentera - Platja Ses Illetes (and again)

 Formentera - Katharina, our yoga teacher

 Formentera - getting ready for some yoga at the beach

New Year's Yoga Retreat in Feldis

I spent the last three days in Feldis in the mountains with lots of yoga, snow, sunshine, some knitting and lovely ladies.

It was my second time at the Sternahaus. Since last February they remodeled part of the house and added a new part with a great yoga room. I especially loved the big windows in it that made me feel so close to the mountains. It was beautiful to see the sky get darker in the evening and in the morning to feel it getting lighter slowly while we were meditating.

The yoga was great, I love spending time with Katharina. She has so many interesting thougths and perfectly fitting quotes and her yoga always feels new and fresh. I can feel my muscles a bit after all these practices but in a nice way. Fortunately I won't have to wait too long till I can do more yoga with Katharina. In April I will get to spend a whole week with her in Formentera. I even met my roomie already, she was also in Feldis.

Yesterday there was enough time for a lovely hike at Mutta, a little further up than Feldis. There was a lot of snow and also ice up there since it had been raining into the fresh snow intensly and then it had all frozen together.

I am pretty sure that this won't have been my last time up there ;-)

Another Yoga Retreat in Portugal

I want to write about my yoga retreat, because it's important not to forget the good things.

I went to Portual again this October because last year was such an amazing experience. This year I stayed closer to Lisbon, in a little village next to Ericeira. The place (Omassim Guesthouse) I stayed at was beautiful, the yoga intense and good and the beaches close by were just as amazing as further down the Portuguese coast. I won't write much more but only add a few photos to give you an impression...

Omassim Guesthouse

Praia da Adraga

Sunrise in Ribamar

Walk along the beach at Praia de Sao Juliao

Praia Azul

Sunset at Praia dos Coxos

30 Days yoga challenge

23 hours 7 minutes and 22 seconds, that's how much yoga I did during the last 30 days thanks to the 30-Day Yoga Challenge from doyogawith me. What a great experience.

I started using this yoga site because of my friend Silvia, way back in November 2011. Then my back started to act up and I wasn't really strong enough for most excercises and neither did I have any idea what I was doing. I visited the site on and off, then I had to do intense physio training to get better over more than a year and I mostly forgot about yoga. I occasionally came back and I followed other yoga sites but not very regularly.

I really came back to yoga when I signed up for my first yoga retreat in Portugal. By the time I came back I was seriously hooked and I think I've done some yoga most of the days and very often I used Do Yoga With me. I also started to go to a local yoga class once a week on Wednesday (I did so in January as well, so sometimes I actually did yoga twice a day). But having this amazing site has been so helpful because they offer so many good yoga classes.

When I saw that there was going to be a 30days challenge starting in January, I knew I'd join. At first I wasn't sure whether to go with the beginner or the intermediate level. After a lot of thinking I decided to go with the slower version and I am glad I did. In the beginning it was a good challenge to keep still, to appreciate what I have and to learn more about relaxing. At the same time I did improve, I got more flexible and probably also a little stronger. Furthermore I can build up on what I have now,

I will try to continue now with the 14day intermediate challenge, but do the classes over more than just two weeks, alternating with grounding hatha classes.

It was sometimes intense to make room for these lessons every day. Some of them are only short but a few are more than an hour and I don't have a lot of time each day. I was lucky to start during my holidays, but once school started I had to be creative. I did all my Friday yoga classes in my actual classroom, by moving away my desk and setting up the projector. The first time this felt a bit weird but now I think I might keep doing it because it was really great to wind down like this before teaching again in the afternoon.

So this got into quite a long text which probably shows you how much this meant to me ;-)

Because I liked this blog entry about doing monthly mini resolutions over a whole year,  for my February mini challenge I'll try to work on my photos, first of all I want to do my next photo book which should have been done about a year ago and then if there is time left, I'll continue to tidy up and tag the photos that aren't done yet in my iPhoto.

And just in case Do Yoga With Me decide to delete the challenge I wrote down all the classes here...

Day 1 Hatha Yoga for Grounding (49:03)
Day 2 Yoga for Stress Relief (29:12)
Day 3 Hatha for Self Care II (50:34)
Day 4 A Deep Release for the Shoulders and Neck (49:43)
Day 5 Settling into Relaxation (26:50)
Day 6 Yin/Yang Yoga for the Shoulders and Upper Back (42:00)
Day 7 Spinal Care for Beginners (61:53)
Day 8 Release the Neck (16:08)
Day 9 Flow Yoga to Energize (47:14)
Day 10 Hatha Yoga for the Heart Chakra (20:00)
Day 11 Deep Release for the Hips, Hamstrings and Lower Back (47:32)
Day 12 Bend and Stretch (34:50)
Day 13 Yoga for Inner Strength (42:13)
Day 14 Align, Stabilize and Stretch (53:32)
Day 15 Love Yourself (32:42)
Day 16 Bedtime Yin Yoga (42:03)
Day 17 Yoga for the Feet (26:25)
Day 18 Breath, Balance and Twists (57:01)
Day 19 Yin Yoga for the Lower Back (36:30)
Day 20 Deepening Relaxation (48:57)
Day 21 Core Strength and Stretch (54:50)
Day 22 Yin Yoga for the Shoulders (34:09)
Day 23 Yoga for Sciata Relief (41:50)
Day 24 Morning Slow Hatha Yoga Flow (17:39)
Day 25 Kundalini for Beginners (78:39)
Day 26 A Yin Practice (28:27)
Day 27 Challenging Beginner Hatha Yoga (33:13)
Day 28 Kundalini Yoga for the Root Chakra (29:41)
Day 29 Yoga for Inner Acceptance (34:38)
Day 30 Hatha Yoga for Better Sleep (39:54)

Happy New Year

I just woke up on this very first day of 2017. It's still all dark and foggy outside but my washing maschine (the real one) is running and somehow my mind is turning just as fast.

First of all, let me all wish us a happy and healthy new year. I got the meme below from Facebook and I think it looks like a great motto.

Somehow I've been awake for longer than I wanted. I never sleep really well after drinking too much alcohol and we had a bottle of lovely wine and champagne last night. Then Yannick was walking around trying to unblock his nose all the time and I am not used to his vibes yet after having shared a flat with Antonia for more than 8 months.

But I am also aware that this unrest I feel comes from the really not very important decision I need to take now: Which 30 day Yoga Challenge should I start - the Beginner or the Intermediate one.

I know I am somewhere in between and I know that I want to deepen my yoga practice, but even though I am very tempted to try the more intense one after having done a few intermediate classesin the last few days, my neck muscles tell me (because of these intermediate classes that I enjoyed but which were still rather challenging) not to be stupid and start with the slower classes and do the intermediate later in the year. There is my answer, all I have to do is accept it and stop fretting about it. Sorry for the rambling.

Happy New Year and I wish for clarity and calmness ;-)

ETA: During the first practice I realised that the beginner's challenge is indeed better for me, because it needs patience and stillness and acceptance and that seems almost more difficult than just more strength and flexibility. So that's that 🤓 

Beach Yoga at Praia de Monte Clérigo

On Friday evening the four of us met with Eve, our yoga teacher and the owner of Prana Casa for a last session of yoga. In the beginning we did a "normal" practice, then we did partner excercises and tried out some acro yoga. Then Eve took over my camera and made us pose in different assanas. We had a lot of fun and it was the most beautiful feeling to be on the beach with really nice people and feel your body do all the things we had been practising all week.

I am so very glad that I went on this yoga adventure in Portugal. It was my first time in a yoga retreat and also the first time I did more than one lesson with the same teacher. I loved all the different practices on the deck, the chanting in the morning, the medidation walk but this beach yoga session was probably the one I will never forget. 

 

During the last few days back in Zürich I tried really hard to stay connected to my holidays. Each morning I did a bit of yoga, I made myself some oatmeal and I've already been to my first hatha yoga lesson in Zürich and payed for 11 more. I'll give my best to continue...

Namaste.