Yoga Retreat in Croatia

Suncokret Body & Soul Retreat

on Hvar Island, Croatia.

Nearing the end of my trip through Eastern Europe and intending to explore Croatia, I decided to randomly book myself into a yoga retreat somewhere near the ocean.  Found a 5 day "Summer Breeze" Yoga Retreat on Hvar Island.  This was basically relaxation and beach time with one yoga session each morning. 

"Suncroket" means Sunflower. Here was one of the many!

WHERE?

Hvar is an island about 2 hours by ferry from Split, Croatia. This was the last week of many weeks of travelling for me and the first time I've stayed in one place for more than 4 nights!  What a luxury.

Handmade Lavender Jams?

The accommodation was a lovely collection of old homes, with nice simple rooms and beautiful views of the hills in Dol, a tiny town with one breathtaking church on a hilltop.

View from my room!

There was a nice mix of 8 people on the retreat from all over the world, including Australia, the United States, Slovenia, Sweden and England. I also concluded that there are many, MANY, yoginis (female version of "yogis") who fall into the same category as me. You know, that 30 something, single gal looking for more meaning in life other than the daily grind? Yeah, more on that later.

The yoga terrace wrapped in nice flowy orange silk things.
We did a moonlight meditation here on the first night. 

Nice little chill-out area with lots of good books!

WHO?

The retreat is run by Evening (yes, that is actually her real name since birth, how apt that she became a yoga teacher?!) who is originally from the States and her husband, Stipe, who is a local Croatian dude.   Oh and their dog Maza of course! She was AWESOME!  Evening's husband Stipe who is a trained Chef, would prepare our breakfast and cook our vegetarian dinner each night.  The food was simply amazing and exactly what I needed after 2 months to eating on the road mainly "white" food like bread, biscuits, nuts and also meat! Blurgh. So it was a lovely detox to have fresh homegrown veges from the garden!


The yoga that Evening taught was mostly Kundalini and began with a few different types of breathing, sometimes a chant and often Evening would kind of reverse the class and begin with more restorative, twisty floor stuff, before moving on to balances and sun salutations. I don't' think I've ever done a class like that in my LIFE, so it was interesting to experience. Tough due to very little sleep and the fact my body and semi-shutdown for the first few days because I'd actually STOPPED MOVING AND TRAVELLING! But, by the last day I was efficiently limber and ready to go. 

WHAT?

Typical beach.

The week involved yoga every day at 6.45am where we were driven to a "secret location" usually at the "beach" (and yes, I use that term lightly and put it in inverted commas due to the fact that they aren't really beaches! Well, not by the Australian definition anyway). As it is surrounded by the Adriatic Sea, none of the beaches are actually sandy. They are mostly rocks and cliffs, but it's all compensated by the beautiful views and aqua blue water.  

After yoga, we would have a picnic breakfast which was muesli, fresh fruit, bread/rice cakes and just about the BEST peanut butter I've ever tasted in my LIFE! Amazing. Oops, forgot to get the brand. After that we would have the day to ourselves and mostly go firstly in search of coffee and then just lie on the "beach" ie. rocks and try to avoid the nudists. Well, I would anyway. I really do admire the EUropean people and how accepting they are of nudity. It's just so refreshing.  Then in the afternoon, Evening would meet us in town and take us on a fascinating tour regaling us with the history of this amazing place!

View from the mat on Day 1. Doing it tough.

Another afternoon walking tour. Perfect.

Another sleepy little fishing village to spend the day in.

Everyone in Croatia speaks English which makes it easy!

We did a Moonlight Meditation on the first evening. Incredible.

NEW FRIENDS:

Coffee success! Me, Jen, Nikki, Maja.
Also, Croatia serves coffee in the smallest cups EVER!

There was Jen, who was a 30-something single girl who had just quit her high-powered Advertising job in New York to see the world/find herself. Very "Eat. Pray Love."  Yoga was something that made sense to her and really brought her back to her roots. I felt exactly the same and was pretty much on the same journey.  Why are there so many single gals in their 30s who suddenly realise that there's more to life than work/play/daily grind and discover themselves through yoga? It really is remarkable. There was another lady, Maja, from Slovenia, just over the border, who was similar. She was a gorgeous single lady who is an Economist with the Government, obviously a very important, high-powered job.  She was also a talented photographer and yoga devotee too! Again, yoga was something that brought us all together and made sense. Oh and then of course, Nikki, a lovely English lass who was about to embark upon a one year tour of the UK in Wicked - The Musical as, wait for it, "Elphaba"!  I couldn't believe my luck! Being a musical theatre nerd since childhood, I was definitely a little in awe of this woman.  Go Nikki!  Nevertheless, yoga was something that brought the 4 of us, whose paths would never have crossed otherwise, together.

GETTING THE GIGGLES:

Day 2 - The nude with a view morning yoga. 

This was Evening's favourite spot to do yoga and it really was lovely (see pic on the right). I mean, check out the colour of the water! This class was sort of in the reverse of a traditional sequence in that we began in about 5 minutes of Savasana, then did a heap of floor work like twists and stuff and then finished off with Sun Salutes and balances. It really was quite diffifult I found. I guess it's because you're used to a certain order of things and siddenly your muscles and your brain is shocked into doing something new. Keeps you on your toes at least. 

Anyway, another significant outcome of today's class was that I decided I'm waaaaay too immature to be a yoga teacher, or in fact, even a grown up. So we were all immersed in this lovely early morning yoga session, positioned in a semi-circle on another "beach" which was essentially a cliff overlooking this gorgeous little bay tucked away from the main "beach" and full of yachts moored. We could hear the sounds of the waves lapping at the boats, the birds and wind in the trees and wait, what's that, the groan of a naked guy emerging from the bottom deck of one of the yachts and having his morning stretch, in ALL his glory. Yep, right in the middle of a Virabadrasana 2, some guy managed to regale us with his entire morning ritual. While is was entertaining, it really didn't make it easy to concentrate on relaxing and as a result, I had to stifle my giggles.  

The bay around the corner with non-nudists.

After the shock of me seeing "naked yacht guy" waking up and stretching, ahem, facing us nonetheless, he then proceeded to bend down, wait, that's not even the worst part, and search for something on the deck. As he stood up, I realised it was a fishing line and off he went, threw the line in and went for a bit of a naked fish!  By this time, some of the other yogis and yoginis has spotted me trying not to smile and also saw "naked yacht guy" now morphing in to "naked yacht fishing guy".  We all shared looks and simultaneously tried to stifle our giggles.  Why is giggling so contagious? Even as an adult? 

After only about 5 minutes of unsuccessful fishing, he then grabbed some sort of hose, gosh, NOW what are you thinking…and then proceeded to give himself a lovely shower.  I am actually not kidding.  He had soap and everything. So as he was showering and making sure he cleaned EVERYWHERE, ugh, his partner, I assume, a naked lady also emerged from the deck and then SHE proceeded to shower!  By this time, almost all of us had noticed this naked couple going through their morning ritual and were sort of all laughing or smiling and poor Evening, with her back to the whole show, was none the wiser.  Sorry Evening!  It really was difficult to concentrate on the yoga with all of this going on. But, I guess that's the whole challenge. To block out the external distractions and focus inwards. So, the moral of this story is, always position your yoga students so their main focus is you and ONLY you, otherwise they may not have the self-control/maturity to block out all those other more entertaining events, particularly in the form of "naked yacht fishing stretching showering guy."  

Stari Grad.

Day 3 - The "city beach" in Stari Grad with creepy
man in the background who stared at us the whole time!

Such a cool little town.

LAST DAY:

Day 4 - The "mystery spot"

This was an amazing abandoned village between two big rocky mountains that had such an eerie feel to it. The history of this island was just astounding.  We did yoga right in front of an old church with a view overlooking the ruins of the old village. It was just incredible. The yoga was a pretty tough class which was difficult for me personally, because the afternoon before, I actually did some Ashtanga Yoga with Tony, who is an Ashtanga teacher from Melbourne and had just been to Thailand with his partner both doing a Rocket Yoga Teacher training course thingy. So yeah, we did almost a full primary series of Ashtanga the afternoon before which I absolutely LOVED (thanks Tony!) and as a result, I intend to pursue more Ashtanga when I get home, so was pretty sore this morning.

Nevertheless, I pressed on and practised "ahimsa" ensuring that I took the gentler options when needed. It really was nice to finish off with a more restorative practise to put me in good stead for the long journey home. Oh, with a one week "shopping stop" in London, it then took me 31 hours to fly home. Joy.

Where's Maza?!

View over the old abandoned town. AMazing!

SEQUENCE:
One of the coolest things I learnt was a nifty method to find the perfect anatomical Cat/Cow (Balasana) position. So you start by kneeling back onto your heels with your knees as wide as the mat. Then you take your forearm, between the wrist and the elbow…you know that same distance that is supposed to be the size of your feet? And then you cock the wrist up and put the forearm between the two knees. Make sense so far? Then straighten the forearm so it faces the front of the mat and put the other arm down facing the same way. Still with me? So now, you should kinda almost look like the Sphinx, but kneeling…and not made of stone…and not in Egypt…THEN, you roll over both knuckles and then take one more handspan in front and then come up onto your knees! That's it! It's not just "wrists under shoulders, knees under hips" or whatever, it's very technical.  Phew! If none of that made sense, just ring me and I'll explain it! I'm not sure if I will utilise this method in a class if I ever teach, but it's really handy to pull out should you want to get technical. Thanks Evening!

Last day. Hung out in Hvar. Very French Riviera feel. 

QUOTE: 
Evening would often say "smiling energy" which was nice. It's from the smiling dosha? Or some sort of chakra? I'm not really sure. But it was nice and it certainly makes you smile and thus go into the pose more. She would also say "breathe into your arms". Ooh ooh and one of my favourite things was the "Breath of Joy". We did that at the end of each day and it invokes 3 big inhales whilst waving your arms around a bit, followed by one big loud, sighing exhale. It felt soooooo good afterwards. 

Sunset on the last night. Amazing.

My room was the top left.

Me waking up to the sunrise on the last morning. I felt good.
I felt back on track. I felt lighter, fresher and rejuvenated.
Also, I knew I was ready to go home.
Yay for yoga!