DATES: Sept 23 – 30, 2017
PRICES: Check out Rates and Reservations page for our base rates plus the prices for our various packages.
PACKAGES: We have a number of Yoga Retreats and packages we offer our guests. Try the Yoga & Adventure, Yoga & Rejuvenation, Yoga & Surfing, or the Pure Yoga package. For more information please read more about our Anamaya Retreat Packages. Or for those who are not totally into yoga, there’s no need to choose a yoga package at all – you can book all your activities and excursions A La Carte. We call it the Relaxation Retreat.
We are also now offering a Scuba Certification and Yoga package to our guests.
WORKSHOPS: We’re excited to offer our guests two special workshops this week. The first is an Introduction to Meditation, and the second is Grounding and Balancing the Chakras Through Meditation and Essential Oils. Please see below for more details.
Guest Yoga Teacher Ashleigh Abramovich
ASHLEIGH BRINGS YOU A PRACTICE THAT IS A SPECTACULAR EXPERIENCE OF YOGA, MEDITATION AND PLAY.
Ashleigh has practiced yoga for 17 years and lived in San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, Dallas, Los Angeles and currently resides in New York City. In each city, yoga and meditation has been the golden thread she has connected to. She is attracted to yoga because it has inspired her to find balance, joy and new ways to move through her life on and off the mat. In yoga you are always good enough and you have everything you need inside of you.
Ashleigh has experienced a lot of healing and transformation to become ready to work with others and share this practice. She considers herself a forever a student. Once she began to teach from a place of love and service she found gratitude and discovered a joy and connection to the practice in an even deeper way. When she is with her students, her main focus is NOW. By being with each other and listening by looking and experiencing what is wanted and needed, she tunes into each moment to share intuitively and presently with the class.
As someone who struggled with being disconnected to her body through her teens and young adult life she was constantly seeking outside of herself grasping to find relief from the frustration of never feeling at peace or at ease in her body. A lot of the fun she was having was short lived and not long lasting. No matter how much she had or what goals were accomplished that connection she sought didn’t appear.
She began a process of recovery out of complete emotional exhaustion after graduating art school and working in the Visual Effects Industry for a couple of years. The rate at which she was living (fast) and the relationship she had to her body (reckless) had taken its toll on her. She sought a spiritual connection and a solution to heal.
She started to meditate and she had many gracious teachers who practiced with her one on one, holding space for her until she was able to hold that space for herself. Ashleigh’s philosophy is to share her experience passionately and authentically. There is a saying you cannot give away what you do not have. Her love of yoga starts with self love, growth and integrity within herself.
Ashleigh aims to share lightness, there to serve as a gentle reminder of what people carry inside of them. There is an ease and awareness we all have accessible to us and it often doesn’t look like we thought it had to.
Ashleigh’s aim is to help guide others to connect and find freedom and relief from stress, anxiety, stiffness and pain. She creates a relaxed and flowing environment which helps to create space and get grounded through a moving meditation. She has been practicing meditation for 8 years with teachers such as Michael Taft & Jessica Graham, and joyfully weaves this into her classes, aiming to guide people to connect to themselves and transform.
Ashleigh will guide you into classes that create a flow state designed to tap you into your creative intuition. This leaves you energized, elevated and at ease. It is a way of being and a way of moving that connects you to how you feel, move how you feel, and handle challenges with ease.
Ashleigh’s Philosophy
Ashleigh shares and embodies the philosophy of Strala, hard things are easy when approached with ease. She guides students to provoke their relaxation response by moving gently and exploring right where they are.
Strala is a way of being, moving and healing created by Tara Stiles, drawing on her background in classical ballet and choreography. The science and movement of Strala is created by Mike Taylor, who studied Mind Body medicine at Harvard and complementary medicine at Oxford. Strala is influenced by Mike’s experience with eastern movement such as Tai Chi and qi gong.
Through Ashleigh’s training with Tara & Mike, her background in meditation, longtime personal yoga practice and work with transformation, the structure she brings is strength, balance, clarity and awareness. She guides a movement system that ignites freedom and gives a radiant experience.
Each class is about the individual and she encourages people to challenge themselves but never to push, which results in doing more with less effort. There is encouragement of exploration, curiosity and a fun expansive feeling.
It is about natural movement from the inside out. Every inhale lifts, opens, expands, and creates space. Every exhale moves you further along, softens, settles, and leads you into that new space. That feeling of lifting and softening, moving further along, going somewhere is exciting and energizing.
Ashleigh will often mirror the class and demo where it applies, always encouraging a breath body connection. Guiding with the breath allows the experience of feeling supported and lifted. Her use of touch is a support to the students in the class and her main priority is connecting to the people in the space and guiding the process.
Ashleigh looks to nature for movement inspiration. Nature is organized chaos. There is always movement in balance. She echoes an insight from Tara, “Trees are sturdy and grounded into the earth and don’t worry about letting their branches and leaves sway with the breeze. When people feel supported with breath body instruction they feel safe and free to explore how it feels good for them to move. There is no wrong way to explore.”
All Strala classes move slowly and continuously, guided with deep breath and easygoing movement from your middle. A moving flow is produced and designed to relax the body and mind, build awareness, and prepare you to move with ease, creating a refreshed and energized state.The stronger classes will build on strength, balance and flexibility, leaving you in a centered, invigorated state while dropping tension.
All classes welcome long-time practicers next to beginners, and everybody gets to move easily from right where they are.
Workshops
Introduction to Meditation
In this workshop Ashleigh will share with you an introduction to meditation focusing on body sensation and working with our environment to release tension and anxiety. She will share tools with you that can be taken from paradise back into your daily lives. There will be 30 minutes of introduction, 30 minutes of guided meditation and time for sharing and discussion.
Grounding and Balancing the Chakras Through Meditation and Essential Oils
In this workshop Ashleigh will discuss the Chakras and how to balance and ground using essential oils and guided meditation. She will take us on a journey through each Chakra, as we apply essential oils to where this relates to each point on our body, she will ease us into a relaxing and grounding meditation. As the oils invigorate the senses and the meditation grounds you, the effect is state of bliss and harmony.
***Workshops are 1.5 hours each and open to all levels. $30 for one or $50 for both.
Testimonials
”Although I’ve always been interested in learning more about meditation, I wasn’t so sure as to how to go about it, but was fortunate to meet Ashleigh… Ashleigh had such an amazing way of walking me through the process. It really centered me and made me realize the inner force that we all have, we just need to connect to it. It is so subtle, yet so powerful and calming at the same time as you feel the flow of your breath running in and out of you.” – Helen
”I am in no means an expert at mindful meditation however Ashleigh expertly geared the meditation towards my experience level. Being able to focus on my busy mind enabled me to relax and start to recognize what was going on with my body. That kind of mindfulness allowed me to return to work with a renewed sense of love and positive energy.” – Karamvir
”Ashleigh’s magnificent light makes practicing meditation a truly powerful experience for me. I’ve had resistance in the past, but I’m feeling more confident and clear in my mindfulness practice with every session. Life will keep life-ing, but what a joy it is to retreat to a safe and calm, quiet space in the mind and body, connecting every time like it’s the first… To finish, feeling a renewed sense of energy and love shining outward, truly building from within. Now THAT is spectacular.” – Desiree
A Message From Ashleigh
