Yoga, sort of
From soul to physical body. Museflower’s yoga retreat programme gives you a full physical workout every day, along with some pounding and pummelling at the spa. This is the package to opt for if you are in search of time to yourself. Or the spa package.
Yoga begins at 7 every morning, usually taken by A or Eugenie. If there are no other takers, you end up with a personalised session, as I did with A, who put me through my paces for a challenging hour. She opted for a lower-body routine that started from gentle stretching and progressed to demanding endurance and balance challenges.
The next day, a Saturday, there were many more guests and it was a pretty packed class—and by packed I mean six of us. Eugenie chose a hip-opening routine that was mostly on the floor, and challenging in its own way.
A note on the “yoga”. It really wasn’t! It was more of a yoga-inspired workout. Apart from the ubiquitous “downward dog” and the “child’s pose”, there were no mentions of anything yoga-related.
Yoga is followed by meditation every day. A—again, I was the only one—introduced me to a walking meditation technique. I think there was a bit lost in translation, so I’m going to look up details when I get home!
I also had two excellent massages from their freelance practitioner, Jang. The body alignment massage on the first day, followed by a Thai massage personalised for me, including Jang’s speciality, the chi ne tsang, a Chinese abdominal massage with healing properties.
The other highlight was snatching a swim at the saltwater pool whenever I could.
I’m going to miss the pool!
~PD