“What kind of people come to your retreats?”

…is a question we get asked many many times – be it by future guests interested in joining one of our retreats or even by our own friends or family. Also: “Will I get along with them or my assigned roommate if I choose to share?”, “What if they aren’t in the same age range?”, “Can I come by myself?”, “What if they have much more/less experience in Bikram Yoga than I do? Will I still get the same benefits from the week?”

Well, plenty of questions to ask yourself when you think of joining one of our Yoga Retreats. And so you should! I would do exactly the same. In fact that’s the kind of questions Sandra & myself were asking when looking at available retreats which led us to decide to run our own! At the end of the day joining a  week long Yoga Retreat is a big investment in yourself, your free time (which most of us don’t have plenty of), and nonetheless it is also a financial expense.

So let me give you a bit of an insight from the past 2 years and over 13 Retreats we did all over the world and about the guests who are actually joining our Retreats. And here is the big surprise: they are all very different and no common theme applies!

By this I mean we have mothers coming along with their daughters, couples, solo travellers (male and female), groups of friends, etc. Some are just between jobs, some have been in jobs forever and are just coming for a break, some guests have been through a divorce and some have just started a new relationship. A girl on our last Retreat in Panama has just graduated from High School and got a passport to be able to leave the country for the first time to attend our Retreat (I had to talk to her mother quite a bit as well to reassure her that we would take good care of her) and a women who attended our last Bali Retreat had just retired (I had to reassure her husband that it is ok for her to come along). As you can see, there is no ‘specific type’ who attends our Retreats which is what I love so much about my job, I get to meet different people with different backgrounds all year round.

However, there a few things all of our guests have usually in common: firstly, they are people with open minds and open hearts. In other words, they are generally open to new cultures, people and countries. And if they are not yet, then they have a strong desire to be. Some of our guests have travelled more than I have – which is almost impossible even if sounding big headed here J While some others have never left their country before.

The second thing guests at our Retreats usually have in common is the love for Bikram Yoga. Whether that is having practiced for years and years and being in competing mode or whether they have only been practicing for a few weeks or months, it doesn’t matter. We even had a guest that has never practiced Bikram Yoga before at all but had a general love for other types of yoga – she’s now training to be a yoga teacher.

That’s the beauty about this Yoga, it is for everyone and you will always learn and improve your practice.  And the question about the age range; if I had to put a median age range it would be somewhere between 27 – 53 probably. Whether you join us in Panama for a Bikram Yoga & Surf Retreat, in Thailand, Mexico or Bali – it doesn’t matter! You will meet great people from all corners of the globe with many of our guests having returned several times already which is probably what we are most proud of.

 

I hope this has given you a better idea about who is actually attending our Retreats – and why it is for YOU!

 

We look forward to welcoming you at one of our Retreats soon. And if you have any further questions please just ask us.

 

Christiane + Sandra