Yoga-General
Right from the start it has to be stressed that the
retreats at the International Dhamma Hermitage are meditation and not yoga retreats.
The purpose of doing yoga during the retreat is to help the body (and mind) to deal with the challenges
involved in a retreat.
It especially helps people from the West who are not used to sitting in a meditative posture on the
floor for long periods. Sooner or later bodily discomfort in knees, hips, back, shoulders, and neck may arise.
Yoga aims to help with this situation.
Women and men have separate classes with a female instructor for the women and a male instructor for the men.
The yoga routine is one Khun Reinhard has taught for the last couple of years to the men.
However, another Suan Mokkh instructor may take the men's sessions, and rarely another participant
may teach.
There are many different postures in yoga and many different schools teaching the postures in
a different way. It depends on the aim. Building up strength may require doing the same posture in
a slightly different way than if one wants to increase flexibility. Details and explanations are given
during practising the exercises.
The routine is designed to help the participants get through a 10-day meditation retreat which requires
hours of sitting each day. Therefore the focus is on strengthening the abdominal and back muscles and on
opening hips and groins to some extent. This will enable the participants to sit with a straight back
comfortably. As neck and shoulder pain is a quite common experience during meditation retreats, some
exercises to release tensions in this area are implemented as well.
The classes usually have 30 to 60 participants, too big to teach yoga in the optimum way. The participants
come from all walks of life, aged between 17 and more than 70 years. Some have not done any exercise for years,
others are used to doing some kind of bodily training regularly.
The average participant is not very flexible
- touching the floor with the fingertips when bending forward with straight legs is beyond the ability of many
when they start the class. Therefore the exercises have to be simple, so that nearly everybody can take part
without getting injured or frustrated. Age and health problems, like back, heart and blood circulation
problems, have to be taken into account.
During the meditation retreat the mind should become calm and peaceful and the participants should become
aware what is going on in their bodies and minds. The yoga class is designed to accomplish just that
and so there is no jumping into the postures and a lot of relaxation in between the exercises and at the
end of the class.
- Very simple loosening exercises everybody can do,
- followed by an easy variation of the sun salutation as a warm-up.
- We then work the abdominal muscles and the muscles of the back and
- try to bring more flexibility to the back, spine, hips and groin.
- We end with relaxing body and mind, thus preparing for meditation.
Most participants gain a lot during the 10 days of the yoga class and many continue with the routine or parts of it after the retreat.