blisspassport.com

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.

Sonja Bjelland sporting a tree pose among palms Photo by Dug Begley

21 days, did it change my life?

We’ll see.

On January 10, I signed up for Yoga Journal’s 21-day Yoga Challenge to hold onto my 2012 intention of “possibility.” 

I’ll admit, I’m a little behind. This morning I completed the video for day 15.

But I have done yoga almost every day in the last 21 days so if I was heading to an hour and a half yoga class, I didn’t always make time for the 45 minutes or so of the Yoga Challenge.

Doing so much yoga lately has taken me back to my traveling days. When I stayed in ashrams or was participating in a yoga program, it was my life. Hours of yoga every day. The Yoga Challenge has been a way to bring a little of that back to my daily life and would be a great addition for teachers to include as a take home from a yoga retreat.

It’s the kindling for an at home practice. But I haven’t yet started it as a ritual.

In doing this and needing a new book to read, I’ve finally picked up my copy of Twyla Tharp’s “The Creative Habit.”  She talks about the importance of having a ritual to start your day to put yourself in your creative place.

This has melded nicely with the Yoga Challenge and given me options.

I plan on continuing through the 21 days worth of videos, and stretching out this challenge by mixing in regular yoga classes. This way I can figure out what suits me. Do I want to do 15 minutes of sun salutations every morning followed by stretching out what feels like needs it. Or do I like a video telling me what to do?

Most of the Yoga Challenge teachers I could easily follow on video but one required more looking at my screen because even the model had trouble following her instructions.

These last few weeks have also made me rethink how I do yoga. Changing clothes multiple times in the morning would be a barrier for me. So I gave up on that.

Taking a shoulder stand in the Singapore Flyer By Sonja Bjelland

I’ve done the videos in my jammies and my jeans. Neither is ideal. But really it’s 20-30 minutes and it doesn’t have to be perfect, I just want to do it to see if it helps me stay focused for the rest of my day.

I’ve also put my mat in my office so I can’t avoid it. I leave it rolled out and even have pillows handy for sitting during the 15-minute meditation.

Yes, I could have a special place in a less busy space without cushy carpet. But I needed this set up for success.

I agree it’s nice to have a place that’s designated for yoga just like the bedroom should not double as an office. But this is also about working yoga into my day, not working my day around yoga. Maybe keeping this up will mean I work more efficiently and I will be able to take 90 minutes for a daily yoga practice in a separate room. Until then, I’ll fit in what I can and try to rebuild the daily yoga I enjoyed during my travels.

Fall colors in Colorado By Sonja Bjelland

This week the folks over at the Wanderlust Festival announced their adding a third location – Colorado!

The music and yoga festival is bringing on an in between venue to it’s original site in Lake Tahoe, Calif., and last year’s addition of Stratton, Vt.

Of course, now that I live in Colorado this makes me pretty excited and apparently this is the place to be considering there are two other yoga festivals and a Yoga Journal conference.

Joshua Tree at sunset By Sonja Bjelland

The annual Wanderlust Festivals blend the most popular yoga teachers with leaders in the green community and top musicians. It’s hard to get more hippy but it also sounds like fun.

A few of the big names in the lineup announced Tuesday for the inaugural Colorado outpost include Ziggy Marley, Anusara yoga founder John Friend and Deepak Chopra.

Hopefully, I will have money before all the tickets sell out. Advanced tickets go on sale Jan. 24.

If you can’t come join me at Wanderlust Colorado July 5-8, here’s some of the other major yoga festivals going on this year:

BaliSpirit Festival March 28-April 1: The fifth annual event that led the world yoga festival scene is doing it up big this year and many favorite teachers will be returning. This festival gets more of an international flare because musicians and yoga teachers don’t have to hassle with American immigration. No seriously, that’s what they told me when I interviewed them last year.

Shakti Fest Joshua Tree, Calif., May 11-13: A pairing with the fall Bhakti Fest, the first incarnation of the spring version has gotten some big names including Shiva Rea and Saul David Raye.

• Hanuman Festival, Boulder, Colo., June 8-10: Yet to announce it’s 2012 lineup, last year’s event featured the festival regulars Seane Corn and MC Yogi.
• Wanderlust Vermont June 21-24: The lineup at this one includes musician Ani DeFranco and yogi Rodney Yee as well as Twee Merrigan, whose class I enjoyed at last year’s BaliSpirit Festival.

• 

  Los Pinguos performing at the BaliSpirit Festival By Sonja Bjelland

  Telluride Yoga Festival July 12-15: A smaller scene from Wanderlust, this year’s festival will include a brother and sister coming from India to teach Sanskrit, yoga philosophy and chanting.

• Wanderlust California July 26-29: Similar to the Colorado lineup with a few changes, it’s the original.
• Evolve Music and Yoga Festival, Vernon, N.J., Aug. 31-Sept. 3: This will be the 5^th annual for an event that last year boasted 50 bands and 30 yoga workshops.
• Bhakti Fest, Joshua Tree, Calif., Sept. 6-9: Still a ways out for a lineup, this is the biggest such festival in Southern California. The festival’s base is in kirtan and chanting but organizers have added more asana (pose) classes as it has grown.

Good morning Breckenridge

With my belly on my mat, my hands grabbed my ankles and I looked up to a view of the Breckenridge slopes.

Toasty warm in the class at Meta Yoga Studios one block off Breckenridge’s main drag, I was glad to sweat a little. The prior night’s temps had hit 0 F.

Meta is one of the only designated yoga studios in town and was the best class to fit in my schedule. Summit Hot Yoga also has a variety of classes but I would have needed a place to clean up afterward. Meta wasn’t dripping-sweat level, at least for me, and has changing rooms.

Anusara trained teacher, Elizabeth, guided the full but not crowded class through a series of poses to a playlist that ranged from Jack Johnson to Kings of Leon.

Parade participants at Breckenridge's Ullr Festival By Sonja Bjelland

The Anusara style of yoga comes from John Friend who has a history in physical therapy. The focus on alignment comes through in the way a teacher in this style explains each posture giving care to detail how to protect the back and adjust leg muscles.

Attendees in the class ranged in levels but was listed Anusara-inspired 1/2. With between four and seven classes a day, Meta Yoga Studio has tons of variety for locals and visitors.

A post-slopes class loosens up those hips and those shoulders tense from the cold. Specialty classes include a men’s class, one with a DJ and après ski yoga.

All blissed out, I headed next door to Cuppa Joe on Elizabeth’s recommendation. The sweet potato burrito replenished all those lost calories with black beans, eggs, pepper jack, spinach, avocado and the all important Colorado green chili.

Well of course with a chai latte on the side.

Belly full and myself relaxed it was time to see the town and take in the 49th Annual Ullr Fest, celebrating the Norse god of winter.

Life in Vietnam's Mekong Delta By Sonja Bjelland

Today’s horoscope said it would be good for me to plan travel. But where should I go?

My 2011 wanderings took me to Germany, France, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, (Layover in China), California, Illinois, Colorado and Canada, California again and Illinois again. Whew!

No, I’m not going to be quite that ambitious for 2012. Heck, I don’t even have a plane ticket purchased or method of paying for one figured out yet.

While my current housing in Colorado opens up many yoga possibilities, I also keep reading about great opportunities south of the border. So in a perfect world with a growing bank account, here are a few places I’d hit up in 2012. Where will you be heading to? Be sure to let me know, I might have found some yoga there.

1. Aspen, Co. – Every summer there are a variety of outdoor yoga options and I’m hoping to tackle at least one of them this coming summer. The Aspen Center for Environmental Studies had a few classes last summer that I’m hoping they continue this summer. One included a hike with a naturalist mixed in with yoga.

2. Wanderlust Colorado  – The popular yoga festival that already has events in California and Vermont will be adding a Colorado venue from July 5-8 at Copper Mountain this year. I’ve wanted to go since these started but haven’t lived as close to one as I do now. Tickets go on sale Jan. 24 so I’m hoping they don’t sell out before I can raise the money to go.

3. Arches or Zion national parks, Utah – My love of places such as Death Valley and Joshua Tree have me itching to check out the scenery in southern Utah. Ideally, this would entail meeting my SoCal peeps for a camping outing. But they would then have to indulge my photographic side that makes me a pretty slow hiker. And yes, I’ll be tracking down yoga there.

4. Costa Rica – Pretty sure I could spend several months searching out yoga retreats and vacation spots in Costa Rica. The country’s focus on eco-friendly and sustainable tourism has been met with a flood of yoga destinations. Fortunately there’s a website, CostaRicaYoga.org, to help narrow down the choices.

5. Montana’s Feathered Pipe Ranch – This place has captured my interest for a long time. I’m pretty sure any retreat I could go to there would be worth it. The Wisdom to Renew… Living in Luminosity retreat caught my eye because it mixes photography and yoga. That’s pretty much my version of bliss right there.

6. Yak and Yoga in Illinois – Somehow the timing just didn’t work out for me last summer to do the kayaking and yoga trip done by Fever River Outfitters based in Galena, Ill. Hopefully this next summer I can fix that.

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.

Pyramid in Heidelberg, Germany, By Sonja Bjelland

If you could give someone peace for Christmas would you?

In not so many days a few of us will begin a mini freak-out (OK maybe not so mini) about what to buy those near and dear to us for the holidays. So what do you really want to give them? Is that a sweater they really should wear?

It’s great when you can surprise someone with what they really wanted. But figuring that out without directly asking trips up most of us.

And then there’s the whole issue of stuff. It’s no secret I’ve been on a tear about stuff. Is it a gift that will actually be used?

I get that the holidays are about abundance. But I would rather give, and give well. Concert tickets, plane tickets, a yoga studio gift card. Things rarely stick with us, moments and events do.

For me it’s not as much fun to shop online as going to a store. But you’re not likely to find information about a yoga retreat next to Mrs. Fields Cookies.

If you do have someone in your life in need of something beyond what you can give, maybe a yoga retreat would work or go all out on a yoga vacation.

This year's tree

It’s all you could wish for if your friend or loved one who is struggling could find peace.

Even for a few moments to stop the hamster wheel of thoughts in his or her head and build some skills for the eventual return to daily life.

If they’re already a yogi, try to find out what type and go from there. Maybe give them a paper explaining what you’ll pay for with the trip and why you thought your friend might like it. Or call the studio they go to and see if they have any upcoming retreats. Especially, if a favorite teacher is holding one.

If this would be totally new to the person its tough to know if it’s better to start big or small. Regardless, start easy and well known. Sivananda has ashrams in California and Canada as well as Italy and India. Kripalu in Massachusetts and White Lotus in California are also well-respected programs. I’m also a fan of anything Judith Lasater does and would love to do her weeklong program at Feathered Pipe Ranch in Montana.

Didn’t make the Santa list this year but maybe next.

By Susan Gill

Recent emails about re-uping my hosting and domain name for BlissPassport reminded me that it’s been two years since I started this venture.

Since I purchased BlissPassport.com on Nov. 20, 2009, you loyal readers have followed me across 14 countries and several states.

I’m hoping you’ll follow along for several more journeys as I continue to build this site.

Actually, it won’t be quite this site that I’m building. In the next few months, I’ll be transitioning over to www.YogaRetreatsandTravel.com.

I’ll still post great yoga finds and give you travel tips with the addition of listings and reviews of yoga retreats and resorts.

In business speak, I’m taking it to the next level.

It’s been a long journey to get here and I am grateful for everyone who has helped me. I had the first nugget of this idea back in the summer of 2009. I’d been working full time in daily newspapers for almost 10 years. The industry was not looking good but it was all I’d ever known. Newsrooms are not something left willingly or lightly by most journalists.

Kanyakumari, India By Sonja Bjelland

I loved what I did. So believing that I could possibly do something else created a major shift in my brain that ultimately saved me. I didn’t see most newspapers as having a very sustainable business model and all of us had to prepare for a day when our job was no longer there. That day came for me sooner than I’d planned but it also opened time for me to focus on building a new career.

This road has not been easy as my savings have evaporated into Indian dust and I have debated if this is the best use of my talents. I have loved all the amazing places I have had the opportunity to see and the chance twice each week to sit with myself and think about something related to yoga. Even if it’s on deadline and I’m staring at a blank page, this site has been a way of bringing myself back to the wisdom of the practice. I’m hoping that it does the same for at least a few of you.

I will continue to pursue my goal of bringing more information to those who want to travel with yoga and share my insights about the world with my readers. From my days covering homicides to now, my focus has always been to help people understand a part of the world they cannot see themselves. It’s a sisyphean task because people don’t often want to know what I want to tell them.

But that’s part of the journey that’s yoga for me. Enlightening those around me without judgment but with observations.

Downward dog is one of several immunity helping poses By Susan Gill

A series of yoga poses meant to boost immunity can be especially important during these winter months.

Even some yoga retreats focus on revving up your immune system.

If you question the physiology, it really only matters that you believe it will help your immune system considering placebo remedies are sometimes as much as 50 percent effective. If we can think ourselves sick, we can think ourselves well.

For an at-home immune session, Yoga Journal has an online sequence that lists 10 mostly supported poses that you hold for at least 2 minutes each. The aim is to get your lymphatic system doing its job and helping out your other efforts to stay healthy. Because you’re eating your fruits and veggies right? To get your lymphatic fluids going this requires your body enjoys play and keeping your head and feet in positions far from standing upright.

Me by one of the A-maze-ing Laughter statues in Vancouver. Looked like a laughter yoga class. By Doug Quan

Now after you’ve stood long enough on your head, it’s time for the easy part of being well. It’s time for a belly laugh.

Yes, science is still debating how humor affects immunity. But I found it hilarious how seriously one study on the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s website handles laughter.

“This finding indicated that only the subjects who laughed out loud during the humor video had significantly increased immune function following the intervention,” the study stated. “Persons who just smiled or did not have observable responses to the humor video did not have positive changes in immune function.”

I’m bummed to not have a laughter yoga group in my immediate area but I will have to check out the ones in Denver and Boulder at some point.

These are easy and cheap remedies but a good yoga retreat or longer ayurvedic trip for India’s healing side of yoga can be the ultimate immunity enhancer.

In western Massachusetts, Kripalu is holding an immunity and yoga retreat Dec. 16 to 18. The weekend includes lecture and discussions about low immunity as well as ayurvedic tips and restorative yoga with an intention of uplifting participants while also being restful.

SwaSwara yoga resort near Gokarna, India. One of a few yoga and ayurveda resorts. By Sonja Bjelland

Farther afield, India has all sorts of ayurvedic resorts and retreats. Many yoga places I visited from Parmarth Niketan to a Sivananda ashram also have ayurvedic clinics on site. One of the traditional immunity boosting methods is to have a hot oil massage. Just remember you’re out of the West so make sure you pick a clean place and if it caters to Westerners that may help. A traditional version is not for those nervous about their bodies and quite frankly wouldn’t be legal in the U.S.

The hotel group CGH Earth owns one purely ayurvedic resort in India and another that focuses on yoga and meditation as well as ayurveda. These are full on resorts so the accommodations are Western vs. the ashrams though they offer the same healing and services for those wanting to be healthy in style and comfort.

Nikie Johnson takes a Warrior I Photo By Sonja Bjelland

What are those yogis really talking about?

I know not everyone who reads this site is quite as in to yoga as I am.

And lately I’ve started realizing how foreign some of the yoga language is to the general populace. It’s not the Sanskrit terms for poses we throw around, but phrases in English like “being grounded” or “connecting mind and body.”

Maybe you think a yoga retreat would be good for you, but this terminology and thinking puts you off.

Nope, it’s not for everyone. But really what’s the worst that can happen? You might like it or decide it’s not for you. It’s much more likely you’d get in a traffic accident than be swept into some cult if that’s your reservation – especially if you’ve researched your yoga retreat destination.

Like any industry, yoga has words and phrases that allow us to easily speak to each other. It’s like all the acronyms in the military or buzz words in any business. And just like everyone else, we assume people outside our world know what we’re talking about. Except they don’t.

Sonja Bjelland sporting a tree pose among palms Photo by Dug Begley

These phrases also demonstrate a reality for yogis, words that define a feeling we previously didn’t need to clarify. Before I started yoga, I knew I had days when I felt more off kilter. I hadn’t yet realized that the opposite of those days was feeling grounded. Through yoga, I discovered that doing some poses and meditating allowed me to change from those frenetic mind moments to being more calm and stable.

For me a lot of yoga is visualization, imagining roots coming out of the bottom of my feet connecting me to the earth or pretending fireworks are going off along my spine.

I’m a visual person, so this works for me. My mind needs something to focus on.

A recent YouTube video with the little animated folks built from Xtranormal cracked me up in this regard. (Warning, if your kids are around you might want to plug in your headphones.) The teacher kept saying you need to sit and be still. The student just wanted to stretch. Again, it’s a little lost in translation.

If you’re defensively rejecting the notion of sitting still for a few moments than you probably need it most but won’t listen to someone who tells you as much. And that gets me to another point, yes, that sitting in silence is about “connecting to yourself.” In yoga, that’s our goal. But what does that mean?

In this uber-busy world, it’s easy to not ever spend time with yourself. We let the world affect us without us understanding the effect the world has on us.

Sitting quietly alone in your thoughts, demonstrates that. The world wants you to make a grocery list, but you are not a grocery list. You are more than grocery lists in the way that you can have a deep philosophical conversation about grocery lists. Yes, I hope you laughed at that.

Yogis want to understand what’s going on in them – Aka, being in touch with our feelings. That grocery list in your head allows you to ignore feelings. Keeping forever busy does the same. But what this is talking about in yoga is acknowledging that you have feelings, everyone does. Most often the feeling we’re trying to ignore is because of fear and yoga teaches us to embrace that or release it. Or what we’re really fearing is finding out that we feel.

Pool side at SoulShine yoga retreat center on Bali By Sonja Bjelland

Yoga’s Buddhist side prefers the “middle way.” Difficult to achieve, it’s an acknowledgement that we have feelings and we need to see life in its most real form. Not in the distortions we create in our mind. Part of a yoga practice and some yoga retreats is to discern reality from what your mind creates. Just think about Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. If their brains can come up with such fantastic fiction, imagine what novels your own mind has created about yourself or other people in your life. The brain is incredibly powerful in creating our individual reality. And it’s one of the aspects yoga tries to bring out.

Helping you define these phrases for yourself is the hard work required in many yoga retreats. It’s taking stock in your life and where you are. That’s why they can be uncomfortable and freeing all at once and why it can be important to attend one far from your normal life. To take you away from that grocery list.

I hope this gives a little insight into the yoga world. If you’re confused by any other phrases, or anything I’ve said, feel free to ask and I’ll explain away.