DATES: July 9 – 16, 2016
PRICES: Please see our Rates and Reservations page for our base rates.
PACKAGES: We have a number of Yoga Retreats to choose from. Yoga & Adventure, Yoga & Rejuvenation, Yoga & Surfing, or Pure Yoga. Please see our Anamaya Retreat Packages (ARP’s) for more details.
WORKSHOPS: We are excited to offer our guests some special workshops this week. Bare Bones Basics, Learn to Fly: Arm Balances, Setting Up Savasana: Thai Yoga Bodywork, and Inversion Immersion. For more information please see the descriptions below.
Guest Teachers Tai and Vidya
Inspired by native tribes and traditions that have a history of removing themselves from day to day life and community to engage in spiritual growth and connection to a higher power (that power which resides within you), T’ai and Vidya realized in the modern age/western tradition, we have yoga retreats. Like the Sweat Lodge, Walkabout, and Spirit Quest of other respected traditions, Yoga Retreats offer modern day yogis time and space away from society and technology in a natural environment where they can experience real quiet and space to grow.
Weaving in the elements of water, fire, earth, and air, as well as sound/music, and yin/yang flow, T’ai and Vidya are inspired by a balanced, harmonious approach that includes the physical, the mental, and the spiritual bodies.
As a team, they bring years of purposeful play and practice. Both T’ai and Vidya come from theater and dance background, honing and honoring the lighthearted state of yoga. Having traveled all over the world together, they believe in treating every moment as a great adventure. They believe in meeting strangers and strange experiences with curiosity and a loving spirit. T’ai excels at working with beginners to build a strong, conscious foundation for personal growth through practice. She is gifted in the arts of yoga therapy, including Thai Yoga Massage. Vidya has a way of sneaking you into those poses that you never thought were possible and making you laugh while you do it. Together they form a team that can root you down into the earth and soar you to the highest heights of a transformational retreat experience.
In this 6-day retreat, you will commune with nature, explore your inner world, and create space away from society and technology so that you may cultivate an open mind and a heart that’s ready for the adventure of your everyday life.
T’ai and Vidya believe in practicing in sangha, in community. And when they say practice, they also mean play.
T’ai Jamar Hanna, LMT, MS, ERYT
T’ai = calms and peaceful, joy, and big RED fish. Jamar is a combination of her grandmother’s names Jane/Mary and Hanna is her mother’s maiden name.
T’ai is a lifetime athlete who would rather being riding her bike, climbing a mountain, or swimming in the ocean. As an intercollegiate soccer player, dancer, and mover, she learned early on the importance of self-care and integrative approaches to health and balance. When she started studying Iyengar yoga in 1996 with Mitra Tredway, she felt immediately at home. She found yoga enhanced her mental performance and increased her physical flexibility. Soon after, she started teaching yoga, mostly to special needs kids in afterschool programs.
T’ai earned her 200-hr certification with Paula Tursi, Reflections Yoga along with 40-hours of Thai Yoga Massage with Peter Kaaberbol, 2006. In 2007, she completed a 25-hour prenatal yoga training with Urban Yoga at Kripalu. She is a certified Level-One Yoga Tune Up® instructor, 2008. Since then, she has acquired hundreds of hours in Thai Massage, studying with world renown teachers, Arno Ihermitte and Jack Chaya of Chiang Mai Nerve Touch School, 2011. She has completed several trainings/hours with and David Lutt of Osteo-Thai College, 2010-2014. She so enjoyed a recent 20-hour Kids Yoga Training with Urban Yoga Foundation, 2015. At any opportunity, she studies Body Tuning and Yoga Nidra with Glenn Black, as well as Anya Method with Courtney Bauer. In 2014, she obtained a License in Massage Therapy, after completing an Associates of Science in Occupational Science at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine.
She currently teaches privately and publicly in NYC, as well as leads international retreats and workshops in Yoga Therapy and Thai Bodywork. She is a lead trainer for the Advanced Yoga Teacher Training with Reflections Center for Conscious Living.
Philosophy:
I teach Alignment and Flow Yoga: the dance between breath and shapes (asana). I truly believe when we are in alignment physically, we can find the possibility of spiritual contentment and mental calm. I meet and greet each student where they are and offer modifications, hands-on adjustments and inspiring principles based in Anya method, Reflections Yoga, and Yoga Therapy. While I offer a very therapeutic environment, the practice is strong and powerfully connected to the breath and challenges the mind through focus, conscious relaxation, and pure joy in the discovery of SELF.
I like to laugh, learn and live loudly. I am working on stillness, stability, and sitting. I find that the more consciously I breathe, the more I feel sourced and supported. I believe in connectedness. I love fully. I am looking forward to being a lifetime student, practitioner, and teacher of the body-mind-spirit. I am continually amazed by the human spirit and feel utterly privileged to live on this planet and hope I can actively support its sustainability and vitally through my choices, my teachings, and all that I have to offer the world.
Vidya
After participating in her first yoga class as part of a job description, Vidya (Mardi Sykes) was charmed. She has since spent years examining varied approaches to the practice of yoga, studying with much-admired teachers like Manorama, Max Strom, and Shiva Rea.
In 2006, she was Yoga Alliance certified through the Sankalpah College of Yoga. In her classes, she merges reverence for the respected tradition of Yoga with her love of world and modern music. She inspires an atmosphere of courageous curiosity through dynamic vinyasa flow, balancing mindfulness with a playful disposition and encouraging each student to explore his or her expression of yoga through music, breath, creative movement, and meditation.
She teaches classes throughout NYC and internationally.
Philosophy:
On the physical side, I believe in vinyasa krama. Working through the body starting with a very simple movement and then repeating/reinforcing the same type of movement on the body through repeated sequencing that leads us towards a peak shape or theme of the class. Each new sequence links with the prior by incorporating similar movements, but builds the class by adding variations and depth to the physical postures and breathing. My classes are characterized by sequential movement that gets progressively more challenging.
In my classes all levels are welcome! Anyone can participate fully, from beginners to more seasoned practitioners! Everyone will have options to choose from throughout the class to make it more or less challenging based on your experience and your energy level from day to day. It becomes a little like a “choose your own adventure” experience; however we are all having our own adventures in a shared space and supporting each other as we go.
Spiritually speaking, I believe the yogic practices allow us to be like archaeologists in the study of our Selves. We can use the practices of yoga as tool to excavate ourselves, to consciously and gently uncover the hidden depths of who we are. I believe that yoga does not give us anything we do not already have; but that the practices help us uncover what is already there however hidden by doubt, fear, past history, and unhealthy habits.
In a non-judgmental setting, we will use intelligent sequencing, conscious breathing and meditation techniques to “dust ourselves off,” and see what is truly present, as archaeologists do with their great discoveries.
Workshops
From Earth To Sky, Grow Your Practice From the Ground Up
4 CLASSES: $130
2 CLASSES: $70
Bare Bones Basics with T’ai
1.5 Hours – $35
Never done yoga before? Want to get back to the basics? Learn alignment and build a solid foundational knowledge of yoga asana? Feel inflexible or want to build strength? This class will take you through each poses step by step. You will learn exactly how to position your body so that you can feel and learn yoga at a gentle pace: for beginners, people with injuries and joint issues or those who are looking for a deeper exploration of the asana practice. This is a therapeutic class with Hatha/Iyengar methodologies. Learn how to warm up the body and use landmarks to systematically approach the body. This class will provide an opportunity to slow it down and engage with somatic inquiry and mindful movement. All levels are welcome.
Learn to Fly: Arm Balances with Vidya
2 Hours – $40
We will look at how so many of the standing postures in yoga practice are actually arm balances in disguise, designed to help us practice the fundamentals of arm balancing while keeping our feet on the ground. As we build courage and confidence in our balancing abilities, we will study the science of balance: our relationship to the ground and to the sky. We will learn wrist opening/strengthening exercises, how to breathe while maintaining your strong core, and how to relate with our hands (and feet) as we learn to fly! We will practice all manner of arm balancing postures. Feel free to request a balance pose you’ve been working on or have always wanted to try! All levels are welcome.
Setting Up Savasana: Thai Yoga Bodywork with T’ai
2.5 Hours – $45
This partner hands-on class will teach a basic supine and sideline sequence to demonstrate the powerful practice of Thai Healing Touch. Thai Bodywork is a traditional and dynamic approach that combines metta: loving kindness, therapeutic bodywork techniques, supported stretch: freeing energetic pathways and providing a healing connection between giver/receiver. You will learn how position yourself to take care of your body, practicing your own yoga, while offering hands-on touch, conscious breath, and loving kindness to your partner. You will use your hands, forearms, and body-weight to leverage and dance/move the body into a conscious state of relaxation. Learn how to connect, touch, and breathe with another. All levels are welcome.
Inversion Immersion with Vidya
2 Hours – $40
Learn to stand on the sky! Work on strength-building exercises to form a strong base for your inversions, and breathing practices to help with grounding & managing fear. Based on your comfort, you will have the options to work on everything from the foundation upwards: building a solid inversion “base” for shoulder-stand, head-stand, forearm-stand, and hand-stand to taking it to the next phase with exciting variations of movement within the inversions.
In this workshop we will be mostly practicing with partners for support and safety of inverted postures in the middle of the room. Bring a friend, or come on your own and we’ll find a friend for you! Open to all levels.
