Yoga for daily life: Warriors of Light

The warrior sequence of postures are probably the most well known and loved – with good reason. They cultivate strength in the body, increase stamina, open the chest, hips and groins, lengthen the spine, ground us – but for all they offer physically, they offer the same and more for our hearts, minds and spirits.

When we think of the traits of the warrior, we think of power, patience, integrity, strength of mind, courage and determination. These are all traits we can develop and grow with our practice and then the yoga becomes part of our daily life and we can also feel the benefits off the mat.

We all have a warrior inside us. Here’s how to find yours.

1. Stand with your feet wide (wrist over ankles)
2. Turn your front foot 90 degrees
3. Make sure your hips are open and as you exhale, bend your front knee.
4. Inhale your arms up to shoulder height and BREATHE
5. Take 10 breaths here, just thinking about the qualities you wish to cultivate

To bring more integrity to the pose, make sure your front knee is flowing over the middle of your toes, keep your spine straight as you exhale into the pose and tuck your tailbone under to open the groin further.

Next time, when you are faced with a tricky situation in real life, think how a warrior might approach it and see if you can give yourself more space in mind to respond with skill and integrity!

Namaste.

To cultivate your yoga on and off the mat, come ands join us for a retreat! See our full list of yoga retreats here.

Spiritual Warriors

Do you feel you are on a spiritual path? Are you a dedicated yogi? Are you practicing meditation regularly? Or are you choosing to create a life with positive intentions and a higher purpose in mind?
Since 2012, here in Ibiza, we have all felt a definite ‘awareness upgrade’ in the way we create our lives and our livelihoods. It goes beyond work-life balance, it is like we are being asked to stop compromising; to make new commitments to live our lives on purpose, with a higher life purpose, and to live consciously and compassionately, in ways that serves the greater good of mankind.
For our world to survive, now is the time, to stand up and live with integrity. Yet to be a true spiritual warrior is not about pushing your enlightened philosophies on the next man in the street, it means choosing to live the change that both your soul, and the world around you, needs you to be.
Author Paulo Coelho’s book ‘The Warrior of Light’ offers a wonderful set of guiding principles for bravely choosing a higher path that is more conscious, more peaceful, that sees you living with a holistic life ethos, yet is ultimately more powerful, as you stand up for what you know is right, cultivate the qualities of kindness (in yogic wisdom ‘ahimsa’ or non-violence is the first of the Yamas or ways of living), choose higher, kinder and more community oriented ways of thinking and acting. Think global, act local – for example invest in the work of local cottage industries, buy local honey, employ locally based therapists, eat ecologically yet locally and seasonally.
Live with positive intention! In our world and specifically here at Ibiza Retreats, as individuals, with our retreats and as an organisation, we begin every retreat, or idea in development with a ‘Sankalpa (Sanskrit) or heart-felt intention to clearly focus our thoughts, words and energies.
Where attention goes – energy flows – everything is energy. Hawaiian Huna
We are acting as warriors by facing our fears and learning how to release them by strengthening our connection with our souls. And perhaps most importantly of all, each and every one of the Ibiza Retreats team are practicing the art of being kind to ourselves, honouring our physical temples and our emotional and spiritual needs. Every day, in some way, we are personally honing techniques, yoga, meditation, breathwork, walking in nature. We each have our own ways to reconnect with the voice of spirit that resides inside each and every one of us.
This is the voice that deeply knows, the voice of your internal-guidance system. For the spiritual warrior, this connection with your inner-compass is vital for guiding your way through life.  This is also the secret to living in ‘flow’ and to enable you to live truly and freely, with an open-heart, full of trust. For this is the greatest gift of spiritual warrior-hood – moving beyond ‘caring what others think of me. Imagine this: if you stopped caring about what the rest of the world thought of you, how free would you feel? What else would this enable you to dream, to do, to create, to be?

Featured Retreat: Pure Yoga & Ayurveda

The Ibiza Retreats Pure Yoga & Ayurveda retreat is an immersion into the eight limbs of yoga, enriched by yoga’s ancient sister art and science of Ayurveda to restore balance in body, heart and mind.  Whether you are a beginner with a thirst for knowledge or a practitioner of many years – this retreat is about dipping your toes in – or diving DEEP! With four yoga teachers from many different backgrounds and styles leading the retreat, discover that no matter what the practice, your intention is the only thing that matters.

A typical day on retreat
8.00am – Mornings are silence, self-practice and/or help-self teas and bites
8.30am – Led sunrise yoga and meditation with two teachers
11am – Juices and organic brunch
12pm – Treatments and therapies
5pm – Evening practice
7pm – Chanting and kirtan OR Ayurveda workshop – exploring your Doshas
8pm – Sattvic Supper and sweet dreams

We will follow a food philosophy of eating for energy! In Ayurvedic medicine, Sattvic foods are foods that are abundant in Prana – the universal life force that gives life to all sentient beings in both plant and animal kingdoms. And a Sattvic diet means not only vegetarian food, but food rich in Prana ‘life force’ like organic fresh fruits and vegetables. So you will leave with an understanding of your energy and with your system feeling totally alive!

The beautiful retreat centre Can Amonita is like a glam-ashram! Peaceful, calm and immersed in the ‘campo’ in San Lorenzo in the island’s north, you can sleep under the stars with the sounds of the frogs to lull you and the wind whispering through the pines. Enjoy the huge lap pool for a morning swim or luxuriate amongst the cushions in the Bali hut between classes. The beauty of the Pure Yoga retreat is that you can make it exactly what you want and need it to be.

Book your mat space on a Pure Yoga retreat now by emailing info@ibizaretreats.com

Holistic Life Coaching with Larah Davis

After meeting a Guru in New York in 1999, Larah began to actively question her life purpose. She let her intuition be her guide, and followed a calling to Sydney, Australia in 2000, where she was invited to develop a Life Transformations Company by a leading Coach and NLP Trainer who introduced her to the transformative, life-enhancing tool kits of Life Coaching and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming).

Feeling profoundly inspired, Larah began studying Coaching and NLP, alongside energetic and spiritual healing, transformative breathwork, yoga and meditation. When a dear friend was diagnosed with cancer, Larah saw and felt the powerful healing possibilities of this evolving holistic tool kit as her friend began to eat again, play the piano and reconnect with life’s possibilities.

Larah has continued to study, practice and teach for private clients, small businesses, entrepreneurs in London and since 2007, in Ibiza, within the wellbeing organisation that she founded, Ibiza Retreats. With a gentle and nurturing approach, Larah empowers you to set yourself free, from limiting patterns, past stories and negative beliefs. Larah begins with the mind and brings you into your breath and your body, supporting you to release deeper energetic, emotional and physical blockages.

Her clients say they feel deeply nurtured and loved – safe to explore the truths of their inner-world, to address their fears and explore their potential. She supports you to embrace yourself as a holistic being – to learn from life’s challenges, to see the darkness as well as the light and most of all, to fully embrace your dreams. As Larah says: “Where attention goes – energy flows.”

Whether dealing with relationship challenges, or at a crossroads, feeling blocked, rundown or needing new inspiration, expect to experience renewed energy, clear focus for how to invest it, tools and techniques for living in balance, harmony and more deeply connected to your purpose and path forward in life.

Larah leads the Ibiza Retreats Just Stop! Retreats and co-hosts the Get Glowing and Pure Yoga Retreats with Susie Howell and the Ibiza Retreats Team. She gives one to one holistic wellness coaching and energy coaching sessions, teaches rejuvenating hatha flow yoga and guides groups on a profound and uplifting journey together. Book her special 1.5-hour transformative coaching sessions with NLP to release blockages, connect with your purpose and see your path forward with greater peace and clarity, or opt for private yoga and yoga therapy sessions in your home or holiday villa.

Contact us for further information

Yoga for daily life: Let’s go outside! 

Sometimes it’s all about changing the perspective. Shake things up and shake out the body to release stagnant energy, and Mother Nature offers us many gifts which can deepen our concentration and help guide the body within our yoga practice. So why not take your yoga practice outside? Ok, you might not be in Ibiza right now – but the sun can be shining in your heart!

Featured yoga pose: We love the good old Warrior 3! It strengthens the whole body, especially the legs, around the hips and most importantly, the core. It focuses the mind as you need the concentration to keep the energy flowing from the tips of your fingers to the tips of your toes. And today, we are going to try Warrior 3 against a tree.

  1. Begin in mountain pose, rooting down through your left leg
  2. Inhale and draw your right knee up towards your chest, hands on hips
  3. As you begin your exhale, lean forward, hands on the tree and extending your right leg back, hips square, energy between your hip bones
  4. Activate you whole body from toe to body perpendicular to the floor, keeping the core strong. Keep breathing here – take five to ten deep breaths up and down your spine, finding the space inside you
  5. Then inhale and bring your right leg back to standing – keep the leg up! And exhale back

Ask someone to stand behind you whilst you do this to ensure your hips are square. It may help to try to strengthen from the inner thigh rather than the outer thigh. They can even offer you their own thigh to press against – so you are using the tree and the other person to really activate the very core of you. Now you should feel the power of the warrior…

Book a one to one yoga session with our private instructors