For several years now, I have a very ambiguous relationship with yoga. I’ll tell you from the very beginning.
I have been involved in sports, in principle, always. For as long as I can remember, I had a subscription to a sports club, so step aerobics, dancing and Pilates were firmly adjacent to each other in my life. I also got to yoga a couple of times, but for some reason it seemed to me unimaginably boring and not bringing visible results. And also, it seems to me that I am the most inflexible person in the world, therefore, on yoga I felt out of place and an absolute layman (by the way, this may be why I got to classes so rarely).
It all started during my first solo trip. I don’t know why, but if you remember, I decided to start it with a 10-day yoga course in Nepal. I just saw a picture of a yoga school in the Himalayas on the Internet and wrote them a letter.
I will not retell all this again, who are suddenly not yet aware of this story, you are here.
I left there, losing 5 kg, falling in love with yoga, this place, once again to Nepal and so on … vowing to continue practicing during the trip. But then I went to the track in the Himalayas – there we were so tired that there was no time for that, then there was a month in Vietnam with moving every day … and somehow everything started so much that I remembered yoga only in Bali, having arrived there in last year for a month. I studied on my terrace, every day I was going to enroll in one of the many yoga studios, but I never did it. Returning to Kiev with the firm intention of finding myself a studio for classes, I was so carried away by opening a store, meeting friends and planning the next trip that yoga faded into the background. I justified myself by running in the morning. In short, a typical lazy story, I think.
And now October 2013 – and I’m back in Nepal, again on a 10-day course at my already beloved school.
Again delight and understanding that this is mine, I need it, and I really like it.
Therefore, this time, having arrived in Bali, I decided that I would not forgive myself without trying yoga here. Moreover, in Ubud there are just all the conditions for this. The vibrations of a healthy lifestyle – getting up early, yoga schools, organic, raw food restaurants, long walks, absolute inspiration around, life among rice fields – is in the air here.
There are so many retreats, studios and schools of different directions of yoga here that your eyes just dazzle.
I went to Yoga barn. Personally, the case in the person of Vicki helped me to decide.
We met as befits two decent modern girls through Instagram. And we met at Yogabarn. Probably, if not for Vika, I would never have bothered to get up at 7 in the morning and arrive at 8 for yoga. But I got up and came and bought a subscription, which made me an absolutely happy resident of Ubud for the next two months.
In general, what is Yoga barn. This is a whole retreat center on a huge green area (and in the center of Ubud !!!, but it seems that somewhere in a very secluded place), it consists of several yoga rooms, its own cafe, Ayurvedic clinic and even a hotel.
The retreat schedule includes traditional yoga directions such as Classical Hatha, Vinyasa Flow, Power, Pranayama, Restorative, Iyengar, Yin & Anusara.
For the earliest birds – the first lesson at 7 am and almost every hour in one of the halls something passes – and so on until the evening.
I figured out the ideal time for myself – 8 am, it is not yet hot and the people are not critical (do not count on the fact that it will not be enough, because all the inhabitants of Ubud are very anxious yourself, your spiritual development and health, so sometimes there is a cue ball):
This, by the way, is my favorite hall, it is the largest, open from all sides, without any windows or doors, so the atmosphere and mood are just amazing.
I was here a couple of times, but with a large number of people in this room it is not entirely comfortable.
You can pay one-time, this is called a drop-in rate, the cost of a lesson is 10 bucks (110 thousand is just 10 dollars, so that the prices in the photos below are clear). It’s cheaper to take a subscription right away, I bought the first one for 5 classes, then I bought it for 10. As you can see, the myth about the cheapness of Asia is not entirely true. Prices for yoga are absolutely Kiev.
And here’s my favorite super healthy raw organic, etc. Garden Kafe. Here you can hang out for hours – the atmosphere has….
Many people do not even come to yoga, but just have breakfast and work or read a book.
The menu, by the way, is very well thought out – here you come to yoga, and here once before yoga energize (fresh lemongrass, ginger, pandan leaf with honey in hot water) instead of morning coffee.
And then how can you not have breakfast – an omelet with feta, spinach and mushrooms, with slices of whole grain bread … ..
I even photographed the menu for the most curious.
Besides yoga, by the way, a very interesting experience is meditation with Punnu (Indian guru, certified Reiki doctor and spiritual healer).
I already had the experience of meditation, in principle, both in Sadhana yoga school in Nepal, and then in a Buddhist monastery. “In principle” – because although I tried to meditate, I cannot say that I succeeded. Well that is I can sit for an hour or two, but my brain is absolutely not ready to stop for a second, so during these hours or two I managed to discuss everything in my head.
Meditations are taking place in this hall. We sit in a circle and take each other’s hands. And, following special instructions, we begin to breathe faster and faster. After a couple of minutes, lightness appears in the body, and then you stop feeling it altogether, just some kind of weightlessness and an explosion of color around. It is a very unusual feeling when you realize that you are here, but you do not feel physical boundaries. The people around, by the way, are simply overwhelmed with emotions – someone is crying, someone is laughing. I was just fine and very sorry that everything ended quickly.
I decided to repeat this meditation before leaving the island, I wanted to compare the sensations after two months of living there. But, to my disappointment, the meditation was already different (there was no this active concentration on the breath and its acceleration) and, as always, I did not feel anything after sitting and dreaming for an hour.
Even in Yogabarn, you can go through three- and seven-day Detox programs, it costs from $ 329 to $ 1200. What is included and how to enroll, read Here who is interested.
The only thing, it seems to me that you can not live at their hotel. Because for the price of 70 bucks you can rent a palace in Ubud, and the rooms in Yogabarne are rather modest :)) Unless you want to completely distance yourself from the outside world and feel like you are in a retreat. But, as for me, then it is worth choosing more distant centers, because there is still a very large flow of people who just go to yoga, come to cafes ….
As a result, I am in Kiev and again in search of a yoga studio for myself, so that it does not work like last time, share, pliz, who is doing where, a matter of life and death 🙂
Well, I hope it was interesting for you to read about this yoga experience of mine on my beloved island Bali.