Mountain Yoga

This weekend 6 of us girls took a trip to the outskirts of Beijing to have a yoga retreat in the mountains. We woke up Saturday morning and the owner came and picked us up with his van and it was about a 50 minute drive from our apartment to the first location which was a little house in a small village right outside the city. When you first walk in there is a path made out of bamboo about a foot off the ground which wrapped around leading to a yoga classroom, multiple bedrooms and a reading room. In the middle of all of this was an outdoor sitting area that was covered with straw mats giving it the homey feeling. When we first got there the Jion, our Chinese guide for the weekend, gave us an introduction into what the history of the house was and how it became what it is today. In 1995 Jion was at a place in his life where he did not know what he wanted to do. He did not have a lot of money but wanted to find away to build a home and have a swimming pool and so he looked around for a place to do so and in the process he found this little village. It did not have a pool and he would have to rent it so he decided that he would rent the house and dig a hole for a pool and that he did. Long story short the pool is not there anymore but the most relaxing nature inspired facility remains there instead. They work together with a Buddhist Temple about an hour away to run a yoga retreat weekend called Mountain Yoga which is basically designed by you the customer. We decided to go to the yoga house all day Saturday and then move to the Buddhist temple to spend the night which turned out to be an amazing idea. Saturday morning we got there and after our introduction we moved into the yoga room to start our first session. It was pretty basic but incredibly intense and we were feeling it after we finished. At the end of the session we did a session of yoganidra which is basically laying down not moving for 30 minutes listening to this monotone voice. It was meant to relax you and sooth your mind and help you to not think of anything that was stressing you out. Julie fell asleep and was snoring like 2 minutes into it, right after we finished telling ourselves three times "I will not sleep." Haha anyways we had two different yoga teachers, because one lived at the house and one lived at the palace. After the first session we had lunch and rested for a short while listening to the rain sprinkle down onto the straw mats and then we left and took a hike up to see some weird building randomly up on the mountain. We saw places where water used to run years ago and the villagers used to hike up with big jugs to get fresh spring water to drink and carry it back down the mountain. That was impressing to be because I had a hard time walking down the mountain not carrying anything. It was pretty nice but the sky was still pretty overcast from the previous rain. After we got back we just relaxed and talked with the other foreigners who were from all over. There was a woman from Italy, one from Austria and one from Canada along with one from New York. We had a guest speaker who was a medicinal practitioner come and talk to us about scratching and cupping which is pretty unusual to most people. If you look at pictures it just looks like a bunch of bites from mosquitoes on steroids on your back. there were about two to three inches wide but in a circle shape. Brittany tried them and said they were pretty harsh. She still has intense bruises and welts on her back but she did not get it half as bad as the girl that went before her who according to Monica looked like someone "went to town on her neck." When we got done with that we had dinner, which I forgot to mention that the whole weekend was a vegetarian menu which was pretty amazing, and went into a drumming session. It was pretty cool because we all had African drums and we played for about an hour with a lady that did not speak a word of English. It was pretty cool to communicate through our drumming and not much else. Julie was pretty funny to watch because she just couldn't catch on to the beat, and it was difficult for some of us to keep the rhythm because the constant banging started to hurt your hands after a while. Then we did something called ear candling which was a long straw like candle that they stuck into your ear and lit on fire. The purpose of this was to draw all the wax out and it actually worked. It was very relaxing to lay down and listen to the candle burn in your ear. It reminded me of when you listen to the ocean sound in a sea shell. At the end of the night we drove to the temple and got there pretty late and just found our rooms and passed out. Sunday morning we woke up to the most beautiful blue sky shining through our window and a little lady out in our courtyard doing thai chi, which is a traditional form of exercise similar to yoga. We went and had our morning yoga session with Rachel at about 7:15 which was a wake up session, not intended for a workout which was followed by breakfast. We went back after breakfast and changed for our daily hike which was shortly after dinner. We hiked up this mountain and they have this saying that the down is harder than the hike up, which we decided soon after was completely true. When we got to the top it was absolutely beautiful!!!!! I can't even describe it so I took plenty of pictures. Basically I am making this into a novel so I will make the rest short and sweet. We came and had a traditional tea ceremony while we were doing Chinese calligraphy which was amazing!! Then we had lunch and took a rest before our final yoga session and after that we headed home. Anyways long story.. well not short I guess but it was AMAZING! Hope you all are doing well!