Summer Yoga Retreat: Sardinia 2022

On summer retreat in Sardinia this year, my intention was to explore what it means to suggest that yoga is a warrior’s practice.  

Of course, there is the obvious cultivation of physical strength and mental discipline required by the dawn practice of daily sun salutations. 

As a result of moving every morning through the sequence for the salutation of the sun, muscles and bones wake up and there is a feeling of coming back to life as correct alignment and vitality returns. After just one week, students of all ages and abilities begin to experience a significant increase in strength and stamina. 

The incorporation of a gentle introduction to Qi Gong – energy cultivation – lends beauty and power – and a sense of martial art to the practice.  Students join in an enquiry that suggests that it is possible for humans to harvest energy from the sky through the palms of the hands and from the earth through the soles of the feet. This lends new meaning to the work of creating a stable foundation through the feet with the ground. This is the basis for an uplifting yoga practice that reaches everyday towards the sun in praise of the source of life’s energy.

“Exhaling through the soles of the feet into the earth below, inhaling through the crown of the head to the sky above.”

“Rooting, Grounding: Reaching, Rising”

“Earth below, sky above, humans breathing in between.””

Practised in this way, the sun salutation sequence creates the conditions for the daily cultivation of a sense of awe and wonder about the mystery of what it means to be alive on earth. This feeling of amazement and curiosity about the phenomenal nature of all life on earth is one of the nine variables that define the conditions for human flourishing and longevity in the Blue Zones of the world where humans are living the longest healthiest lives. One of these Blue Zones is in southeast Sardinia, in Ogliastra province where wild and unconquerable mountains meet the magic of the Tyrrhenian Sea. On retreat in this place we swim at dawn with the sunrise, and enjoy together the incredible food and wine of the mountains where families rooted in the shepherding lifestyle take their ease. Here we enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the Galanias retreat centre and day-by-day return to the goodness of life sharing in the joy of heart-warming company. 

Coordinated with and supported by the breath, the sun salutation practice becomes a beautiful moving meditation. The practice teaches that the first task of the warrior is to stabilise the inner landscape and that this is achieved by stabilising the breath.

There is a strong focus on retreat on the importance of breath work as the foundation of a transformational yoga practice. Each sun salutation class begins with a seated meditation and we take time to notice the quality of the breath and how it is showing up in the body each morning. We learn to think of the breath as a barometer of what life is like for us at the moment and we come to understand that if we can free the breath of the tension it holds, we can experience greater ease being in the body. The implication is that with a regular breath work and yoga practice we can begin to release ourselves from the constrictions that are holding us back from fully living our lives.  

Many of the lessons of the sun salutation practice reveal ways that we can begin to take our yoga practice off the mat into everyday life. Practising in the tradition of alignment-based hatha yoga, we learn to stabilise muscles and joints before initiating actions such as the transfer of the body weight through shoulder joints in the downward facing dog pose. In this way, the opportunity arises to explore what it might mean to consider whether we are acting in life from a place of grounded, calm strength and stability or acting and reacting impulsively and compulsively in a way that continuously throws us or those we care for out of balance and off centre.

“Stabilise before initiating any action.”

Paying attention to the ways in which our lives are out of alignment with the conditions for our own and others’ well being requires courage. It is not easy to sit with what comes to the surface in the stillness of the seated meditation and to breathe alongside the most challenging of our fears and limitations as we explore the inner landscape of the body/mind, or the most demanding of poses in the sun salutation sequence.

Instead of rushing through the practice, avoiding any discomfort or weakness and hurtling towards a false sense of achievement, we slow the practice down and pay attention to what is being revealed. Eventually, a feeling of liberation is gained as the courage arises, through the stability of the breath, and the relationship of the body with the ground, and sky, to stand in the truth of what needs to be known and brought to light in order for personal transformation and growth to become possible and sustainable.

Practising mindfully – with full awareness – we lend compassion to ourselves and cultivate tenderness in the heart. It is important not to associate the warrior’s strength with a hardening of the heart. Great courage is required to keep the body, mind and breath soft through a continuous return to the conditions for vulnerability. Only the very brave can breathe alongside the intense challenge of slowly and safely taking down the walls that keep our hearts defended again the feelings that could most usefully show the way forward to what most needs healing in us. Gradually, we come to understand that it is not the appearance of the body that is most usefully transformed in the practice of yoga and mediation, but the state of our hearts and minds.

“Equal softness: Equal strength.”

The importance of striking a balance between softness and strength is emphasised on retreat in the dedication of the early evening to the daily practice of spinal release. This is a slow and gently restorative class that focuses on freeing tension and restriction deeply held in the back and spine, whole body and breath. The class brings the nervous system to a complete state of rest through the gradual extension of the exhalation and liberation of the inhalation.  The practice reveals and begins to address and even out any imbalance in the body - front and back, left and right - and brings our attention to the holding patterns that speak of the long history in our bodies and breath of our inevitably emotional and social lives. This can be especially important for students suffering with a history of trauma or profound fatigue arising from constant overwork or emotional burnout, which is increasingly common among young people.

“Imagine the earth was aware of your existence and pressing up to support you, could you allow yourself to yield to that support?”

Our peak pose on retreat was Ardha Chandrasana - the half-moon pose – a difficult but beautiful standing balance to test our composure, strength and alignment. It is one of my favourites poses because it makes possible a beautiful opening of the heart space and a transformation of the emotional experience of being in the body. The half moon pose seriously tests our capacity to move through conditions of change with grace and poise as we learn to play and have fun again like children with the force of gravity. This is another lesson that we can usefully remember as we navigate life’s transitions.

“Moving through conditions of change with grace and poise.”

Returning home from retreat, we hope to sustain the benefits of the practice and the conditions of life that are conducive to our flourishing, but we are challenged of course not to get immediately thrown off by our habitual ways. It is difficult to find the discipline to make any aspect of the practice - the seated meditation, effortless rest, breath work, being in nature, sun salutation, or spinal release - the first priority in the morning and/or evening. And so, we find compassion for ourselves, and do what we can to move and breathe and try to be light-hearted about it. Life is a complex balancing act and of course, we fail constantly; we fall, get up and try again with gradually increasing awareness of what is throwing us off centre and bringing us down.

Yoga and Retreat Photography by Sarai Caprille & Katie Birse.