yoga, and doing things on impulse pt1

Last saturday my dear yoga teacher messaged me, that "going to saarijärvi on an yoga retreat for a few days, you free? Got an extra ticket"

Well, my first reaction was "no, sounds troublesome", but considering I have my self-regulatory rules about yoga, that says "unless I got a proper reason, I should always do it"
So I changed my mind in an instant and agreed to it.

Soon I was on the way to Suomen joogaopisto that's in this idyllic place in Saarijärvi.

It wasn't until I sat alone in the evening outside, that it hit me "This is gonna be weird, but interesting"

Since I've never thought that I'd go to this types of things, as I didn't like summer camps really as a child.


The yoga style was "integral hatha"
Which is something I've been doing for a couple of years, currently my yoga has been rather lacking.

But it was an interesting experience, and I generally like to train it after a break, because it forces me to listen to my mind, instead of going on muscle memory.

It's fascinating when the body is like "let's do it like we did when I was practicing daily, but then I notice that I don't have to it, it's enough with less.
It may sound mundane, but for me who generally do everything to the extreme it's rather weird feeling to not do something to 100%, and instead listening to my body.

The retreat was from saturday to wednesday, but I had to leave a half-day early, as I had an appointment at Huutoniemien sairaala for the autism/adhd diagnosis that has been undergoing for about an year now.

It felt weird, to go sleep 21-22, waking up at 6, doing a morning practice from 7 to 8:30 before breakfast, but it's a nice start to the day, even if the pace of the class was rather slow for me, I would had prefered a more energizing workout.

The days had different themes based on the 'yamas'. On sunday it was 'ahimsa', so as I wasn't feeling so great in the morning, I didn't attend the meditation and pranayama class. I felt somehow guilty, and that I was disappointing my teacher who invited me, but that's the idea kinda of ahimsa, to not hurt others or oneself, to listen to what the body want's instead of what the mind thinks i ought to do.

In the sunday evening I was feeling really weird, wasn't sure why. Until I realised it was the lack of listening to podcasts, so once I did that, it all felt good.

As most people there were beginners in the style, and the focus was as an introductory course to the style, I didn't attend many of the non asana classes or pranayama ones.
Since when it comes to me, I rather sit by myself and do the breathing and meditation exercises.

Overall it was okay, I'm not sure I'll be attending one in a while, but I know that many of my friends one enjoy it.


For me it felt like I was a documentarian there, observing some type of social experiment.
For an example, the breakfast was meant to be in silence, people adhered to the rule, but when the teacher left, it was hilarious to observe a group of 20 mostly in 50-60 years ago, starting to talk and whisper, like we were 7 and in elementary school.

I really enjoy observing these different ways group's of people act, how easily some can just listen and follow rules etc without questioning them.