A Yoga Teachers Yoga Retreat, Cape Town, South Africa.

05/12/2017 Nina

What is this?

Co-hosting the Nourish and Restore Retreats with Nicole as well as the Knit and Breathe Retreats with Gina and Beth made me realise that, very often, we Yoga teachers don’t actually get a chance to head off on retreat and enjoy some peace and quiet. Sometimes it’s finances, sometimes it’s time, sometimes it’s lack of inspiration and sometimes it’s a combo of all three.

So I decided to address all three issues at once. Sometimes when you are faced with restraints you are forced to think outside the box and come up with a plan.

So mine went something like this.

My priorities:

I wanted all my teachers teaching at the studio to be able to attend a weekend away.
It needed to be at a venue not more than 2 hours from CT.
It needed to be cost effective and as cheap as possible.

So we found a weekend in October that worked for all of us, (we discussed it over 5 months in advance!), then I found a guest house in Robertson that could double up as a Yoga space once the furniture was moved as none of the regular retreat venues could accommodate small groups or had availability for our requested dates. To keep costs to a minimum we all teamed up and prepared a meal, no catering involved, (and trust me, we had plenty of food. Let’s not mention the never ending briyani!!!).

One of the most important things to me about being a Yoga studio owner is to be completely transparent and honest with my teachers. So they knew from the start that this weekend away, wasn’t going to be a money making venture, that it was purely for their benefit and growth. It also wasn’t going to be a weekend where we just did some Yoga and then relaxed, there were going to be lectures and course/workshop material to be covered as we unravelled the theme of the psoas muscle and the work of Donna Fahri. The idea; to share relevant and educational teachings with my team to inspire, motivate and further their practice and teaching to enrich them and their practice.

To me this is one of the fundamental aspects of running a Yoga Studio. My teachers are my biggest asset, if they are happy, deeply inspired and motivated, it makes them better teachers. Rabia, one of my newest teachers at the studio, messaged me all excited after her first class after the retreat, saying that she incorporated just two of the movements she learnt that weekend and one of her students, who has terrible kyphosis was able to lie on her back with her legs straight without any discomfort for the first time! Now if that isn’t inspiring to both the teacher and student then I don’t know what is!

This is why I love what I do. I love learning, I love sharing, I love creating projects and inspiring others.

No matter where we are in our Yoga journey, be it just starting off on our teaching journey or having taught for many years, find a community who you can connect with and help each other grow.

For those who are studio owners, I hope I’ve inspired you to look at creating a Yoga retreat for just you and your team, for those who don’t have a studio or who teach alone, look at connecting with 3 or 4 other teachers and plan a weekend away. You never know what opportunities may arise from there!