Rookie going into retreat by himself

Travel & Events Yoga Retreats
#1

I’ve been doing mixed yoga in my gym a couple of times a week since the beginning of october, scaling up to 5 days a weeks through desember and doing more ashtanga yoga. I was kinda hooked early on going to the mixed yoga sessions, but it wasn’t until I started doing ashtanga yoga in desember it really clicked.

In mid february, I’m going into a 4 week yoga retreat by myself in my parents summer place. I plan on doing yoga and meditation every morning and night + working directly with mobility issues with massage balls, foam rollers and the likes during the day.
I will also be following a cleansing diett based on Ann Wigmores principals, a raw vegan diett emphazising on sprouts and greens, so I will be in calorie deficiensy for sure.

But, not having much experience with yoga, I think it would be wise to run my plans by you guys so I don’t have the wrong approach or overdo it.

How does one hour ashtanga yoga in the morning and 20-30 minutes doing the five tibetans in the evenings sound like for a rookie like myself?
Or perhaps 30 minutes ashtanga in the morning would be sufficient?
Should I limit my practice to 6 days a week or should I practice daily?
Will my calorie deficiency be a point of concern in any other way than calorie deficiency combined with exercize like any other weightloss voyage?

I am aware there are no right or wrongs, but your opinions will be highly appreciated.

#2

I might add that I got some naprapathy work done in desember to try and speed up the improvement of my mobility issues. It worked like a charm, and when attending a ashtanga class a few hours after my first session it felt like I was being linked up to a new avatar. I could just go deeper and deeper into the poses, and then breathing and going deeper… and breathing and going deeper, like there was no end to it. I was in total awe about my progression after just one treatment.

But after a few more treatments it felt like my body was holding back. Like my rapid increase in flexibility went too fast, and I started getting sore in a strange way. This could of course also be accredited to my scaling up of sessions per week and of course ashtanga being more physical. But my feeling is that it was because the naprapathy work made my body go into positions that I haven’t been in since elementary school.

Can improvement in flexibility go too fast? Of course, it should come naturally with no forcing, but this is the way I’ve done it… ok, there has been some forcing of course, but I haven’t over done it like some crazy karate stretches…

Perhaps I am answering my questions in my first post here… but I think it would be in place to address this issue as well… perhaps someone else has experienced something similar?

#3

[QUOTE=Frimann Hedning;86413]
Or perhaps 30 minutes ashtanga in the morning would be sufficient?[/QUOTE]

I can’t seem to find the edit button, so I’ll have to edit quoting myself.

It should really say “Or perhaps 30 minutes ashtanga in the morning and the tibetans in the eventings would be sufficient?”

#4

Hmm… after 134 views I’d think someone would have any thoughts about this project, any thoughts at all…?

#5

60 views later and still nothing… are my questions too difficult or too stupid to answer?

…perhaps I just expected too much from this board…

#6

So if I understand you correctly you’ve got 5 months of asana practice under your belt and you’re asking about the mapping of a retreat for yourself guided by you for you?

Okay let’s clear a few things up here. You say “…I plan on doing yoga and meditation every morning and night …”. Meditation IS part of yoga. Asana IS part of Yoga. Pranayama IS part of yoga, Yama and Niyama are part of yoga. Asana is NOT yoga. Asana is a fragment of Yoga.

You ask about your asana practice. Yet you’ve not shared anything specific about you - who you are, how old you are, how fit you are, what your intentions are for your practice. This makes a suitable reply absolute folly.

I personally am not an ashtanga practitioner and so I can’t rightly comment on that practice, especially not for a person I know nothing about. Likewise, I don’t know Ms. Wigmore or her work. It would seem to me that a vegan, raw diet allows for consuming as many calories as you’d like. If you are truly calorie-deficient your body will tell you and it would be prudent to listen to whatever your carcass tells you since it’s the only one you’re likely to get.

Rigorous exercise without proper nutrition is obviously risky. An ashtanga practice is not a viniyoga practice. A power yoga practice is not an Iyengar practice. Point is that you’ve selected a practice that is very active. So yes you should be more cautious about any sort of radical nutrition shift in lieu of that choice.

Lastly, but certainly not least, the Five Tibetans are a very potent series, when done properly they have a very strong effect on the subtle bodies and some say/believe the sequence “adjusts” the chakras. As such I’d not do such a sequence in the evening - in fact I’m not certain I’d suggest it at all for a person with 6 months of asana under their belt in a style that tends to lack alignment.

Go easy.

Gordon