Cheryl and Deanna in tree pose in between classes
Me meditating for the yoga photo shoot in an outdoor tea room
Cheryl in the tea room
Kathy and me- overlooking the resort's herb garden
Me and Cheryl with our coffees for an AM walk before class
Kathy's moment of meditation.
At the end of last month, I went on my first yoga retreat in at the Ojai Valley Resort in Spa in Ojai, CA (http://www.ojairesort.com/).. this place is amazing!! I had been to this resort once before when Tim took me to get a massage here for a birthday present. The resort is amazing, and I was so excited when the gym at work had flyer's up about this trip retreat. I was wondering what a yoga retreat was going to be about, I imagined lots of yoga, but wasn't sure what else. Well, it ended up being just that. It was a fantastic mini vacation and such a relaxing time! I went with a few of my yoga buddies from my 6:15am morning wake up yoga class (Kathy and Cheryl) and one avid spinner, Deanna. The trip was over a Saturday and Sunday and there was 4 yoga classes on the first day and 3 on the second. We did all the classes in the resort's amazing fitness center, which had huge floor to ceiling windows of which you could see all the surrounding oak trees and rolling hills. One of the classes was a candle lit night class, where we did our yoga in the dark, except for a surrounding circles of glowing candles! Another great class was by one of my regular yoga instructors, Guy, at Amgen. His class ending with him playing guitar and singing as we melted into our shavasana.
Right after our first yoga class, we walked over the the Spa area that was in the same courtyard and the lady at the front gave us spa passes for the day, so we spend the time between classes relaxing in the sauna, steam room and outdoor jacuzzi. The weather was perfect, so we got to take full advantage of the entire private pool the resort had to. The best was the resort extended golf cart/shuttle that picked you us up everywhere we went.. talk about relaxing, we literally didn't even have to walk anywhere! Sunday after the last yoga class, I got a "Moroccan Mint Sugar Scrub" which was pretty "invigorating" (and I took a secret lick off my arm and it tasted better then it felt). I don't know if I would do a scrub again, prob just stick to the massage! I was really sad to leave after the weekend was over, it was a really nice way to spend some quiet time relaxing and doing yoga. Namaste.
Right after our first yoga class, we walked over the the Spa area that was in the same courtyard and the lady at the front gave us spa passes for the day, so we spend the time between classes relaxing in the sauna, steam room and outdoor jacuzzi. The weather was perfect, so we got to take full advantage of the entire private pool the resort had to. The best was the resort extended golf cart/shuttle that picked you us up everywhere we went.. talk about relaxing, we literally didn't even have to walk anywhere! Sunday after the last yoga class, I got a "Moroccan Mint Sugar Scrub" which was pretty "invigorating" (and I took a secret lick off my arm and it tasted better then it felt). I don't know if I would do a scrub again, prob just stick to the massage! I was really sad to leave after the weekend was over, it was a really nice way to spend some quiet time relaxing and doing yoga. Namaste.
