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The view from one run at Wolf Creek Ski Area in Colorado By Sonja Bjelland

I’ll be the first to admit that a ski trip is not always the most healthy excursion.

The skiing lifestyle tends toward drinking and a fair amount of carousing. Something has to kill the pain from all day in those boots and sore muscles.

So a yoga and skiing retreat seems a bit counter. But it’s a different way to take the edge off of the body after a day shredding the mountainside. These retreats also mix in healthy and frequently vegetarian meals, again counter to most of what I’ve had on ski trips. And as with all yoga retreats, it gives you specific poses to do before and after skiing so you can continue that on your next trip.

I’ve written before about some of the skiing and yoga retreats in the U.S. but today I’m focusing on European options.

France and Switzerland both have several ski and yoga retreats, and most don’t even require you to downhill ski. It’s a choice of cross-country, snowshoeing or reading a book by the fire if you’d prefer. And being that it’s France and Switzerland, these aren’t exactly lacking wine and I hope there would be a little cheese.

• Yoga with Altitude had one ski and yoga retreat last month and is offering another in April. At resorts of Val d´Isere and Tignes attendees may enjoy morning yoga classes with brunch and access to a sauna and hot tub.
• Villars Yoga has one retreat that starts tomorrow and another in March. The small groups stay in a private chalet in Switzerland by the Villars-Gryon ski area. The weekend includes restorative yoga sessions, post-skiing tea and cakes and a three-course dinner with local wines. The organizers also arrange private ski and yoga retreats for groups of four or six if you have a group of friends or fellow yogis from your studio who want to go.
• Adventure Yoga Retreats Europe is leading a seven-day retreat in the French Alps that they’re marketing as “Eat, Pray, Ski.” The farmhouse setting also comes with organic and ayurvedic meals as well as twice daily yoga and your option of skiing or snowboarding. Days are bookended with yoga and finished off with a yoga nidra session, a deep relaxing meditation that helps with sleep.
• Symmetree Yoga has the longest trip with a nine-night stay in a Swiss ski town. The package include train and gondola passes for the week to ski as well as travel the area exploring other towns that cannot be accessed by car. The daily yoga classes are worked in with a seven-day ski pass to three major ski areas.
• Teacher Michelle Riordan leads yoga retreats all over the world but has returned home to Switzerland to host them there. The two yoga and ski sessions are coming up in March and if you don’t yet know how to ski or board you can mix it with lessons. And if you don’t want to do either of those, she has options for sledding and snowshoeing as well.

Overhead view of Colorado's ski region from a recent flight By Sonja Bjelland

This last weekend I was finally able to pull my ski boots out of storage.  Soon maybe I’ll even get to use them. Until then I’m doing lots of yoga that will help me get ready.

Yoga poses help improve balance and hip flexibility, good for snowboarding or skiing. And it helps you learn to control individual muscles and groups of muscles, also a plus. They’re so good together that several places have created designated ski and yoga retreats.

This is beyond the hotels and resorts that offer onsite yoga classes. The ones I’ve picked out below have a little something special and are spread across the U.S. Or at least the parts of the U.S. that have skiing. There’s so many in Europe that’ll just have to be a separate post.

• At Big Sky Yoga Retreats in Montana cross country and alpine skiing mix for a yoga retreat at a lodge designated just for the group. Other highlights include a sleigh ride dinner as well as evening discussion about meditating and before bed yoga.
• Utah’s Alta Lodge takes yogis out in the backcountry with a multi-day retreat including two days of guided backcountry skiing in addition to five yoga sessions. Better be in good shape for that one but what an adventure.
• Alpine Meadows in California incorporates yoga into its three-day women’s camps.
• On the East Coast, one of the country’s top yoga centers, Kripalu, has organized two ski, snowboarding and yoga retreats.
• The yoga and meditation center in Northern Michigan, Song of the Morning, is holding a ski/snowboarding and yoga retreat featuring yoga by the fireplace, vegetarian meals and meditation.

BaliSpirit Festival attendees attempt the acrobatics yoga posed I rocked in class the other night. By Sonja Bjelland

Held up by my friend’s feet, I was floating over the floor.

Then the giggles set in.

I was tipping forward and trying to tighten my abs but I cracked up instead and recovered before I went into full Tickle-Me-Elmo hysterics.

Several feet above the padded floor, I felt vulnerable, ungrounded.

The giggles apparently are a natural part of play and that’s exactly what acrobatic yoga was.

I’d seen such moves when I attended the BaliSpirit Festival earlier this year but was too worn out to try it myself. When a friend mentioned a class here in Colorado Springs at the rock climbing gym, City Rock, I figured it was time to try it out.

The nature of the location prevents the type of calming environment I’m used to in yoga classes but it brings out other elements that are hard to achieve in a more traditional yoga practice.

At its core, yoga is individual. I can practice at home or in a class and never touch another person the whole time. I don’t even have to speak to anyone save the person I’m handing money to.

Acrobatic yoga adds almost a 3D element. You’re not alone in your practice anymore.

Partner acrobatics yoga at the BaliSpirit Festival By Sonja Bjelland

The class I attended taught by Jeremy Hasty started with group introductions and efforts such as lining up in a circle and squatting together in chair pose with each person supporting the person in front of them. You’d better get used to touching because there’s going to be a lot of it.

That also means the challenges in a pose are not fully on you either. You and your partner have to communicate when something’s too much or just off.

I know there’s some argument if this is yoga or just some commoner’s attempt to look all Cirque Du Soleil. But it does require a heck of a lot of focus, serious breath work and individual muscle contractions. But then it takes that to another level by involving trust in your body and in your space. Not to mention your partner.

At one point, I was suspended in a locust pose held up again only by my partner’s feet not noticing how long I’d been there. He finally piped up and asked if I was just going to hang out there. I guess I was in the zone.

I watched our instructors do some incredibly complicated poses and realized the woman had no fear of being suspended in air. Maybe it helps that a lot of the people in class are rock climbers. Something else on my list of to dos.

But I have hung dozens of feet above sailboats while fixing mast parts and as the smallest child in my class typically was the one thrown around in elementary school cheerleading and gymnastics.

As adults we loose that comfort of freedom. We become more and more unable to let our bodies and minds float in new ways. Yes, this requires some good grounding poses afterward. But the mental follows the physical and the same in reverse so it’s worth it to let our bodies and our minds find new movement once in a while. Now I’ll have to go back for the slackline yoga class on Tuesdays.  Yep, that’s yoga on a wide tightrope.

In those days after Thanksgiving, yoga studios around the U.S. gathered some of us to recenter ourselves and think about others. OK and maybe work off a few of those sweet potatoes.

That sent my friend Shirin Parsavand to a yoga fundraiser benefiting Haiti and allowed her to meet the people involved. She’s written a guest post for us today to learn more about it.

Living in inland Southern California, I knew the tall pines and rustic wooden buildings in the mountain community of Idyllwild provide a welcome change of scene from the congested cities nearby.

I learned Friday that among the approximately 3,000 year-round residents is a tight-knit group of people who are quick to pitch in on each other’s projects. At the center of one such group is Kate Sirkin, the owner of Idyllwild Yoga Studio.

Sirkin got an immediate response when she planned a benefit to raise money for building a school in Haiti, a country still devastated from last year’s massive earthquake.

Outside of Idyllwild Yoga Studio with items for a silent auction during a fundraiser Friday to benefit Project Edeline, an effort to build a school in Haiti. By Shirin Parsavand

“The minute I put the call out, people were right on it,” Sirkin said Friday, as the fundraiser to benefit the school got under way.

Businesses donated artwork, jewelry and gift certificates for a silent auction. She also got ready offers of help from fellow yoga instructors. Judi Way, who owns a Pilates studio next door, and instructor Sandi Fulcher joined Sirkin to offer yoga classes throughout the day.  Donations and sales at the fundraiser added up to nearly $1,300 to go toward Project Edeline, named after earthquake survivor Edeline Felizor.

Felizor hopes to run a free school in Haiti, where many children do not attend school because their families cannot afford the fees and supplies. Felizor worked as an elementary school teacher in Port-au-Prince and before the earthquake was studying to become a high school teacher. She was in a building that collapsed during the earthquake and was trapped for several hours in the rubble with a broken neck and five fractured vertebrae. It was more than a week before she received surgery on a U.S. military hospital ship.

Felizor and her sister Isemene now live near San Diego, thanks to Byron Shewman, who met Felizor in Haiti while working as a translator for a medical team. Shewman is managing Project Edeline through his nonprofit, Youth Without Borders, which works on Haiti relief.

Shewman, who knew Felizor would not get the physical therapy she needed in Haiti, arranged for humanitarian visas so the sisters could come to the United States. He also found a physical therapist near San Diego willing to treat Felizor at no charge.

Edeline in the snow near Julian, Calif., early this year. Photo courtesy of Byron Shewman

Sirkin met Felizor through that physical therapist, Stephanie Hoffman. Now, the community of Idyllwild, about two hours from San Diego, has developed a connection to Shewman, Felizor and the school project. Early this year, Felizor came to Idyllwild for a monthly forum where she sang and told her story to about 75 people.

Lou Bacher, a friend of Sirkin’s, was at that talk and said he was deeply moved. He spent Friday running the silent auction outside the yoga studio for Project Edeline.

Bacher is president of the Idyllwild Help Center, which provides food and other services to local people in need. He said he understands the difficulty of aid work in places like Haiti but still believes in the school.

“Yes, it’s possible. If enough people get behind it and the organization stays legitimate, absolutely, it can be done,” Bacher said.

So far, Shewman said, Project Edeline has raised about $20,000 of the estimated $200,000 needed to purchase land, build the school and run it for the first year. Plans call for the school to begin small, starting with three kindergarten classes of 25 students each, and expand gradually. To learn more about Project Edeline, visit Youth Without Borders at http://youthwborders.org/.

Most recent snow fall By Sonja Bjelland

I’ve already felt some winter chill so it’s no wonder I was drawn to a few tropical locations for this month’s roundup. I really can’t believe there’s already another month gone. How did that happen? Obviously, I’ve been a bit busy traveling this month and trying to set up my new place. But I know that after Halloween it’s a crazy shot straight through New Years and all of a sudden it’s 2012. Just thought I’d remind you in case you weren’t already freaking out about all that.

Instead give your mind, and body, a break. It’s no secret that I loved Bali and now Surf Haven Bali is giving visitors a $300 discount if they come by the end of the year.

I’d take them up on it because from what I hear that’s the best way to learn and yoga and surfing fit well together. I tried when I lived in California and took a serious beating. Maybe I’ll have to try again next time I’m in Bali.

Or if you’re still thinking tropical, Black Tomato Costa Rica has a new adventure and yoga vacation in the works.

Some of Bali's most famous surfing in Ulu Watu By Sonja Bjelland

The trip promises endangered wildlife, eco-lodging and yoga. Another one to add to my list.

Now thinking more toward next summer, Canada’s Globe and Mail had an article on Montreal that included a note about the Shea Mayer’s Fitz & Follwell Co. bike and yoga tour through the city.

“His Bike & Yoga tour, for example, takes visitors through the bohemian neighbourhood of Le Plateau, with a break along the way for smoothies at his favourite juice bar and stops for yoga sessions in three of the area’s tranquil parks,” the article stated.

Kanyakumari, India By Sonja Bjelland

Sounds like a pretty good way to spend the day and yet another note in my ever-growing list.

In more practical yoga travel information, Anusara yoga founder and yoga stuperstar John Friend has teamed up with Manduka for a product line that includes a travel mat.

I haven’t seen the new mat yet to compare it to my prAna yoga travel mat but I’ll have to check it out because Friend travels all over the world for yoga. It’s a toss up for me between taking a yoga travel mat and just taking the ToeSox and gloves. Or going au naturel. But I kinda like having a mat between me and a hotel room floor.

But what if that hotel room was on a women’s only floor?

The New York Times InTransit blog had a piece this month on more Indian hotels offering floors for women only. So if you’re planning on an Indian yoga holiday, this might help ease you into the chaos.

The phenomenal streets of Delhi By Sonja Bjelland

One year ago today, I caught a train to New York City and made my way to John F. Kennedy airport.

I wouldn’t hit U.S. soil again for seven months. First stop, Delhi.

As I walked on the plane, they were playing a version of “Feelin Good.”

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me… And I’m feelin’ good.”

How could that not feel right?

What was ahead I didn’t know, but I was off.

Its not that I wasn’t scared. I was terrified. But it also felt right. The power of wanting to travel overwhelmed the fear of doing it.

When I arrived I went to the hotel room without checking it out first. First travelers mistake. When I was paying $60 a night I had assumed a certain standard that didn’t hold true in India.

The challenges always fell away to the joy of discovery and adventure. The streets proved intense and overwhelming. Drivers calling out to me while I was trying to find where I was going and not twist an ankle on the potholes in the once paved streets.

But a smile makes everything better and so did finding a restaurant that always gave its female patrons a jasmine bracelet.

Laundry in my first hotel room in Delhi

I went back to my notes from that time to help me recall those first few days when jetlag had a stiff grip on me. Delhi was chaotic with my taxi sharing the road with cows, horses, buses and scooters. Lest I not forget the ubiquitous rickshaw.

It’s almost hard to imagine now how jarring it was. But in some ways it also felt like coming home. I’d lived in the developing world before and a part of me missed being fascinated daily by something I saw on the street. Furniture jury-rigged on a moped, or a family of six. Or all of the above on the same moped.

That first week also brought a lot of drama. Someone shot up a tourist bus outside the main mosque in Delhi, the Jama Masjid. A car bomb went off down the street from it. I just wanted out of Delhi but I had to rearrange my plans because Rishikesh was flooded. I needed a yoga class and forced myself to venture out on the streets to get to one. I was so glad I did. The class helped calm me down and I met two Thai monks studying in Delhi. We shared a rickshaw to the subway station and road back together.

Me at the Jama Masjid

People really did seem to come into my life when I needed them.

Over the next seven months, I became more adept at walking on less than stellar surfaces. I grew more confident in my ability to find hotel rooms on the fly and navigate a train station. And I watched how serendipity so frequently happened when I let it.

I’m getting ready to move again but this one seems easy compared to last year. Most things seem easier and few are worth a big to do. After you’ve mastered the Indian waitlist train seating system, the Chicago Transit Authority feels like a breeze.

It’s not like every moment of my travels were easy. But most problems were resolved within 24 hours and turned out not to be a huge deal. Solutions could be found and 20 min. of drama need not ruin one day, much less a whole trip.  So yes, I’d do it all again in a second.

Salutation Nation at Chicago's Oak Street Beach By Sonja Bjelland

The teacher kept correcting herself when she said look up to the ceiling – oh wait, sky.

And put your hands on the floor, correct that to beach.

We’re so conditioned to our environments, it even happens in yoga.

As yogis across North America gathered for Lululemon’s Salutation Nation on Saturday, it was obvious.

Lululemon calls the day a “never ending om.” Chicago must not be so much into the “om” because it was more of a quiet hum than the type of combined force I’ve heard in India or Bali that gives you goose bumps. Pronounced “A” “U” “M,” it’s a universal sound that vibrates through the body when you chant it.

The crashing waves of Lake Michigan and the drone from cars on Lake Shore Drive may have muffled some of that though.

With our hands pressing into our mats on the sand, we arched our backs back in upward dog and looked out at the lake, told to honor someone who inspires us. Or I think that’s what the teacher said, note previous paragraph.

As we moved on to downward dogs the sand piled up under my ankles creating a perfect ledge to support my legs. The sand also helped support an attempt to balance on my backside with my hands and feet in the air for boat pose, a bit ironic while we looked out at Lake Michigan.

Salutation Nation with the Hancock building in the background By Sonja Bjelland

This was my first beach yoga experience, despite all that time in California and Asia. Well, not including the platform on Koh Phi Phi in Thailand. In this experience, we got the sand and the lake breeze. Just no salt water.

With all that and some twists, sand dusted everything I had. Somehow my mat kept slipping back toward the cute guy in the row behind me.

But I didn’t get too neat-freak about it. I wanted to hear the crashing of the waves and feel all of us working through these poses together. I wanted the power of yoga to emanate out of that place and somehow bring a little peace to the world. When I breathed in, knowing that Sunday would be 9/11, I envisioned this drawn pink heart shape expanding around the world. I just wish it was as simple as that.

Friends gather on a roof at Parmarth Niketan By Sonja Bjelland

I’ve often described my stays at yoga ashrams as being like summer camp.

What I’ve discovered in the nearly year since, is the enduring power of the friendships built on a yogic foundation aren’t that much different than what I can imagine from summer camp as well.

I started noticing this during late-night conversations with my roommates on my first retreat at the Mt. Madonna Center in California. I made other friends over those brief few days that have been lasting friendships.

In India, the connections were almost more immediate. I had been traveling for weeks by myself in cities that require you to muster up the courage to walk outside. I would chat with any fellow travelers. Then I landed in an ashram surrounded by more Americans and Brits than I’d seen in weeks.

Then I started meeting my roommate and my other classmates.

Gardens at Parmarth Niketan By Sonja Bjelland

I know a lot of people can’t imagine having a roommate, or staying in a dorm as an adult, but I found it was the best way to make friends.

For 10 days at an ashram in Rishikesh our group of 13 made our way to 6 a.m. yoga. We attempted chanting and sang “Imagine” on a dorm rooftop more than once by candlelight.

Many of us have stayed connected via Facebook and email. One Bulgarian man from our class may soon be meeting up with a few from our group while in California.

When I head to Colorado in a few weeks one of my yoga camp friends will be in the area.

These are friends I’ll happily see whenever I make my way to London or Australia.

And I will always have a place for them to sleep.

I got lucky with my group of friends in Rishikesh.

Yoga friends in Rishikesh, India By Sonja Bjelland

My other, shorter, stays at yoga ashrams in India, Thailand and Bali all led to friendships, but not always the kind of bond from 10 days together at Parmarth.

I think the length of time helped strengthen that. At Sivananda’s Kerela ashram, the yoga vacation program allows people to come and go every few days. I was only there four days and met some great people but I didn’t leave with the connections I’d made before.

Thailand and Bali lacked the dorm-yoga-ashram type accommodations and therefore required much more effort to make friends.

I would ask people if they liked what they were having for dinner or if I could join them when there wasn’t a seat available. That meant I rarely ate a meal by myself. Otherwise, it would have been easy to hang out at the beach and go to yoga classes twice a day without meeting anyone.

But I didn’t let that happen and made friends who have given me more reasons to hop across the pond. Those links also bring each of us back to a time when we were focused on deepening our practice through a yoga vacation and allows us reconnect to those moments.

Morning sun reflects off skyscrapers onto the lions that guard the main entrance to The Art Institute of Chicago By Sonja Bjelland

In my ongoing hunt for fun yoganess, I wound up back at The Art Institute of Chicago.

It’s not that a backyard isn’t a fine place for yoga. It is, especially the one where I currently reside.

But yoga in new and interesting locales can bring another layer to the class. Maybe instead of breathing in calm you take in creativity and the power of your surroundings.

The Art Institute of Chicago is building its yoga program and adding some Saturday morning classes to the yoga and art lectures and classes I’ve written about before. I was very ambitious this last Saturday and did yoga at Millennium Park for an hour before sneaking out a little early to make it through the park, across Monroe Street and into Griffin Court.

Abby Factor from BloomYoga is teaching both yoga classes. Respecting the surroundings, she encouraged the yoga class to keep our eyes open on occasion and take in the architecture designed by Renzo Piano. Looking up I could see the blue sky through the metal design creating the skylight. In twists, we turned to see the giant sculpture that greats visitors.

Taking a child's pose in Griffin Court for Art Institute yoga By Sonja Bjelland

The two yoga classes seemed miles apart even if they were right across the street. One was hot and outside with music playing and yogis every which direction. The other was air conditioned, quiet and maybe 25 people.

Both were good ways to start my Saturday and excellent ideas for stirring up creativity.

While the Millennium Park yoga is easy and free for out-of-town yoga travelers to Chicago, The Art Institute visits take a bit more planning.

The Saturday morning events are currently only for members and both events require pre-registration.

Yoga at Millennium Park in Chicago By Sonja Bjelland

Rain and life interruptions have kept me from testing the free outdoor yoga in Chicago’s Millennium Park all summer.

Finally the planets said it was time.

On Saturday morning, I hopped on a CTA bus and made my way to Michigan Avenue. The park sits in the pregnant pause between Chicago’s skyscrapers and Lake Michigan.

At 8 a.m. on Saturday, the city is just waking up. Not much traffic noise to tune out or hustle and bustle on the streets.

I followed the bicyclists and walkers with yoga mats strapped across their backs to the Great Lawn in front of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Spotting a sliver of shade from the crissed-crossed bars overhead, I unfurled my mat. It’s a quick walk from any of the hotels in the tourist are around North Michigan Avenue or the Loop.

Newbie and veteran yogis dotted the field as the as Jason Adasiewicz and Frank Rosaly band began playing. First timers in street clothes lined up next to yoga bunnies for the weekly free class.

Yoga at Millennium Park in Chicago By Sonja Bjelland

Teacher Alie McManus got everyone going with the excitement of doing yoga in Millennium Park.

“Reach up to the sky,” she would say, or “out to the lake.”

We worked our way through basic poses and then she allowed for more complex variations getting people to at least attempt a crow pose.

Unfortunately, I spotted a few Budweiser caps mid pose. Not something I usually have to consider when I roll out my yoga mat.

But even that was worth it to roll back at the end of the class and look up at the artistry of the pavilion and part of Chicago’s skyline and be grounded in that moment.