Rooted and Free: Iyengar Yoga for the Body and Mind

Join Jessica for a four day Iyengar Yoga retreat.

This retreat offers sessions to nourish many levels of our being from the powerfully physical to the quiet space within. Each yoga asana session will build upon the previous session logically and sequentially. Each evening has an optional session to quieten your mind for the night. In between, Menla offers a magical array of mountain walks, nourishing food, supportive company, and the quietness of your own self care.

Spring is where our roots bring up new shoots in the form of new possibilities, new learning, new understandings, into a new season of life. Iyengar Yoga uses yoga postures (asana), breath practices (pranayama) and meditations to cultivate our self awareness and discover our roots – our place on this earth. Iyengar Yoga gives actions we can use in our postures. These actions are our “roots” of understanding ourselves as they bring awareness to how the body and mind connect. Self awareness creates a fundamental change in our ways of thinking and being and helps us orient our thoughts to come from a different place with less stress, and more present-ness. Through practice, our roots of self awareness become stable and strong, we are able to grow, with a special kind of freedom that comes from knowing where we are – our place in space, so we can breathe more freely into the wider space that exists around us.

Jessica is a senior level Iyengar Yoga teacher with 27 years of teaching experience. She teaches in the Hudson Valley, in the North East, and abroad in the UK and Europe. Jessica works with methodical detail that builds awareness of movement and form. Her classes are playful, challenging, and healing. She is well practiced in Iyengar Yoga therapy as an effective tool to help injuries and other conditions. This is her fifth year hosting a retreat at Menla.

Thursday April 9th

• 4:30 – 6 pm Welcome and Yoga class
• 6 – 7 pm Dinner
• 7:30 – 8:30 pm Restorative practice (optional)

Friday April 10th

• 8 – 9 am Breakfast
• 9:30 am – 12 pm Yoga class
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm Lunch
• 3:30 – 5:45 pm Yoga class
• 6 – 7 pm Dinner
• 7:30 – 8:30 pm Evening pranayama practice (optional)

Saturday April 11th

• 8 – 9 am Breakfast
• 9:30 am – 12pm Yoga class
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm Lunch
• 3:30 pm – 5:45pm Yoga class
• 7:30 – 8:30 pm Meditation (optional)

Sunday April 12th

• 8 – 9 am Breakfast
• 9 – 11am Check Out of Rooms
• 9:30 am – 12 pm Yoga class
• 12 – 12.30pm Q and A
• 12:30 – 1:30 pm Lunch and Departure

*Please note that this schedule is subject to change at any time.