UpSideDown Yoga Holiday — now into it’s fifth year, proves to be an eclectic platform to advance your Yoga practice, explore the creativity of AcroYoga, rejuvenate with Thai Yoga Massage, plus allows real social time for yogis and yoginis to interact!
This coming July in 2018 (10th -16th), we are hosted by the world famous ‘Shambala Gatherings’ retreat centre, quietly situated in a Swedish forrest surrounded by tranquil lakes. Shambala is particularly renowned for the community feel that is created when ‘strangers quickly become friends’, for the wholesome vegan food made from local and mostly homegrown organic ingredients, and its beautiful location in Nordic nature . Other features of the centre include the availability of a variety of massage treatments and the use of their sauna.
UpSideDown Yoga Holiday is co-run by Catie Foroughi, creator of CYoga, ieva Wildlovebeamer, AcroYoga teacher, European teacher trainer for Rainbow Yoga and founder of Wild Love Beamer, plus her partner, AcroYoga base and Wild Love Beamer director, Dino.
Holiday Benefits
- Advance your yoga practice, with a handstand, arm balance and back-bend focus
- Explore AcroYoga
- Experience the giving and receiving of the healing art of Thai Yoga Massage
- Complementing yoga activities with Yogi Social time
- Immersion into the beauty of lush Nordic nature
- Get nourished with local organic vegan cuisine
UpSideDown Holiday
July 10th -16th , 2018: Shambala Gatherings, Sweden
UpSideDown Yoga Holiday’s focus is to support you in your growth in your yoga journey, create space for you to relax, and connect to nature & like-minded yogis and yoginis. There will be two Yoga sessions a day, meals provided and ample time to rejuvenate and explore our beautiful location.
Our retreat centre this year, Shamabala Gatherings, is great place to awaken your inner wild and free spirit by exploring the surrounding beautiful lush forrest and lakes, enjoying the evening sauna, dipping in a tranquil lake and trying some of the in house bodywork therapies: Thai Yoga Massage, Craniosacral Therapy, Full Body Oil Massage and Meditation Floating Tank.
Morning CYoga sessions are focused on your personal yoga practice with emphasis on arm-balances, backhands and handstands, while afternoon Wild Love Beamer sessions is ‘Social Yoga play-time’ exploring AcroYoga, Partner Yoga and Thai Yoga Massage practices. Both sessions are suitable for beginners to intermediate, to advanced/ embodied/professional practitioners.
More about
AcroYoga:
AcroYoga elevates the connection between you and others through movement, connection, and play. Acro in Greek means high, or elevated. Yoga in Sanskrit commonly translates to notions of union, or joining. The experience of taking flight with AcroYoga instantly dissolves fears and invites practitioners to tap into new and infinite possibilities of communication, trust, and union. By combining acrobatics, yoga, and healing arts, the practice of AcroYoga has built a community of active teachers and practitioners all over the world.
It blends three main elements:
- Solar Acrobatic Practices, that cultivate trust, empowerment and joy
- Lunar Therapeutic Practices, that cultivate listening, compassion and letting go
- Yogic Practices that cultivate breath awareness, life balance and connection
Partner Yoga
Yoga flows connected with one or more yoga friends. Helps you to balance in ways your could not on your own, stretch deeper than you usually would and cultivates the ability of listening, communication skills and interpersonal connection.
Thai Yoga Massage
Thai Yoga Massage originates from Buddhist tradition and has elements of Vipassana (meditation of insight), Metta (loving kindness), Yoga & Thai Chi.
It is the application of rhythmic pressure on points & energy lines in the body, yogic stretching of muscles & joint manipulation.
Food
3 vegan meals are provided by Shamabala daily: breakfast, lunch and dinner.
A few words from the cooks below:
Shambala Kitchen Food“The kitchen is the heart of Shambala. We just love to make delicious vegetarian food for you. We not only use the best possible ingredients, including organic products, but we also take care of food combinations to ensure that you are in top energetic shape all throughout the retreat.
Many people have felt throughout the years, that one of the peak experiences of Shambala has been in the kitchen!
We have chosen to have an open and warm feeling in the kitchen where food is prepared amidst singing songs, laughter and creativity that comes from the navel and the heart.
On the menu selection process we inspire ourselves in the Ayurvedic tradition of food preparation and proper food combination.
Our vegan, gluten-free cuisine uses mainly organic products, and locally produced vegetables when possible.”
You can even see some of the favourite Shambala Gathering recipes here.
Your Teachers
Catie
Catie Foroughi is an organic vegan Yoga Coach and trained Yoga Therapist, with a core approach that anything is possible. A yogini since childhood, she remains spontaneous with a highly original & integrated approach to yoga, and a dynamic connective energy. An experienced teacher, Catie developed her own formless/form of yoga – Cyoga.
“CYoga is this ‘Magic Moment of Involvement’ with Love/ Yoga; brilliance in any situation.”
Catie has a Complete Freedom approach and conducts all types of classes including one-on-one and group yoga, master classes and Yoga training intensives at some of the world’s most naturally beautiful locations. Many of the Intensives she offers and co-creates with others are backbend and handstand focused.
“Backbends are transforming and handstands are about creating the life you love.”
In her own words:
“I study many styles of yoga and handstands from the inside out and transform weaker areas in one’s yoga practise to one’s greatest strengths …always expanding with passion..
I naturally embodied yoga in a very lucid manner since childhood and delight in the play of form. Though the asanas came much later… I left a life that included a ‘career/ work/ hedge fund lawyer’ to one where I live my Love. My Passion guides and informs every action and this ‘all-encompassing vision’ creates love and absolute joy… but most important is the Universality of what I do.
Coaching, I experience bodies becoming exceptional with holistic strength, profound love, joy and flexibility, which allows natural understanding and relaxation into and celebration of this moment. This manifests natural beauty. So we all care for and support each other and this amazing Earth / life to the best of our ways. Experience the CYoga class and be the revolution: ‘Wherever laugh and the heart beat originates.’”
ieva Wildlovebeamer
ieva is founder of Wild Love Beamer — a social yoga company that facilitates creative, fun, spontaneous, heart-warming Family Yoga, Relationships, AcroYoga and Partner Yoga experiences worldwide as well as operating as a London-based Private Yoga and Bodywork agency. Wild Love Beamer offer a variety of private yoga, massage therapies and Social Yoga for corporate and events.
ieva is also an AcroYoga.org certified teacher, Thai Yoga Massage therapist, Ecstatic Dance facilitator, and European teacher trainer for Rainbow Yoga , facilitating both their Kids & Family and Partner Yoga Teacher Trainings across the continent.
In her own words:
“My main focus is to bring people together via the fun, interactive & Emotional Intelligence harnessing power of social yoga – be it corporate team-building events, family yoga or workshops at visionary festivals. I see more similarities than differences between us.
In the recent years, yoga teacher trainings and Yoga Holidays became the focus of my work, as I witness these highly receptive types of settings to be the most life enhancing and transformational for my students and myself.”
Dino
Dino is your trusty Partner Yoga co-teacher and reliable AcroYoga base. Director of Wild Love Beamer, Dino is certified by Rainbow Yoga (200hr) covering Kids & Family, Community & Partner Yoga, as well as an AYfit (AcroYoga.org) trainer.
Dino first experienced the transformative power of UpSideDown Yoga Holiday as a guest in 2014, and joined as part of the teaching team as of last year.
He offers a calm and playful approach to teaching, and in AcroYoga leads by example to base partners of all shapes & sizes.
An example of relationship yoga in action ieva & Dino, run Wild Love Beamer together with the goal of reaching an many as possible with this connective form of social yoga.
Schedule
Depending on the arrival and departure time of the guests, the program for the first and last days will be adapted to accommodate the group:
8am – Morning CYoga Session
10am – Breakfast
Shambala Pier11am Freetime (our favourite activities are journaling, hiking, dipping in the lake, receiving massage session, AcroYoga jamming time or just sit and watch the stillness of the lakes)
1pm Lunch
3pm Freetime
5pm – Afternoon Wild Love Beamer Yoga session
7pm – Dinner
8pm – Sauna, Kirtan, or Freetime
What Makes This Retreat Special
We feel the specialness of our UpSideDown time is best conveyed by our students bellow:
“[Catie] You push my practise to a whole new level!” – Ana Paula Costa, 2016
“I choose to go on the UpsideDown Holiday as I knew Catie by reputation and already done some acro yoga with Ieva & Dino. The quality of teaching is what is most important to me and I wasn’t disappointed. The morning session was with Catie, the afternoon Acro with ieva and Dino. I felt it was an excellent blend and balanced each other out nicely. It was challenging and fun…I’d high recommend as an escape from city living.” — Martin Skylane, 2015
“This retreat was blissful for the body and soul! The setting was absolutely beautiful, the weather was sunny, and the food was delicious! But most importantly, the yoga classes were fantastic! There was an invigorating Vinyasa yoga class in the morning, and a playful, fun, and challenging acro-yoga class in the afternoon. In the acro-yoga class we worked in pairs (base and flyer) and trios (with the added spotter). You have to trust your yoga partner (so very good for control issues!) and face your concerns about being able to do certain positions (again, a very good metaphor for life!). The teacher, ieva, and her partner, Dino, bring a fantastic energy to the class (and a very cool soundtrack as well!). I can honestly say I had an amazing week, with amazing people and I left feeling full of yoga love I’m definitely going to book another retreat with UpSideDownYoga!” — Ana Paula Costa, 2015
“I was quite apprehensive about going on the UpSideDown Yoga Holiday. I hadn’t been on this sort of holiday before. However, my nervousness melted away in the warmth of a great bunch of people. All levels of ability were accommodated. I learnt so much from everyone there and from being part of the group. We also had a good amount of unstructured time to explore the beauty of our location. There was a good balance of group time and individual time.There was also a good contrast provided by the two types of yoga being taught; one was individual yoga and the other was partner yoga. This was great because we had class time to concentrate on our own yoga practice and also class time to have fun learning to do acroyoga together. it meant there was a lot of variety. The food was wonderful and the teaching was inspirational. It has really given me more enthusiasm for the wonderful thing that yoga is!” — Juliet Pleming, 2015
“I would 100% recommend UpSideDown holiday to my friends. It was everything I expected and more! Amazing teachers, and a group of really inspiring, positive people. The food was delicious and it taught me how much variety there can in vegan options. Not only did the holiday give me a chance to practice yoga, it completely shifted my perspective on life and what was important. Since I’ve come back I’ve continued to eat healthily and do yoga every day” — Ella Price, 2015
“We all grew a lot in every possible way. I am definitely going back!” — Pilar Perez, 2014
Booking
The total price for the holiday is £790 when paid in full before 17th June
Price from 17th June [final month] – £880
A deposit of £150 + 3% card transaction fee to secure your place on the holiday:
https://www.wildlovebeamer.com/yoga-holidays/upsidedown-sweden-2018#booking
Once you have booked we will be in touch to confirm your spot
Maximum spaces available: 12
Offers
10% off for previous attendees of our UpSideDown Yoga Holidays or Raw UpSideDown Yoga Weekend 2016 or refer a friend and both receive 10% discount
What’s Included in The Price
Yoga twice daily for 6 days
3 Vegan Meals a day
Shared accommodation (twin or triple rooms) for 7 nights
1 evening signing / Kirtan session
Sauna Access
Location & Travel information
Shambala (http://www.shambalagatherings.com/) is situated 5 minutes from a town called Skinnskatteberg, 2 hours north of Stockholm in Sweden.
Coming by Air:
The nearest airport to Shambala is Stockholm Vasteras. You can fly from all over Europe to that airport with the low fair airline www.ryanair.com. From Vasteras airport, you can take a taxi to the train station in Vasteras and from there take a train to Skinnskatteberg. To view train times, visit this website www.sj.se.
The second nearest airport is Arlanda airport. This is the main airport in Sweden. From there you can easily take a train all the way to Skinnskatteberg. Again visit www.sj.se for train times and information.
Coming by Train:
We are fortunate to have a train station at Skinnskatteberg, a few minutes from the center. For train times, visit http://www.sj.se/
Coming by Car:
If you are coming from Stockholm, please take road E18 towards Oslo. After having passed through Vasteras, take a right on rute 66 towards Ludvika. After about 30kms, take a left on road 233 towards Skinnskatteberg. Right before arriving at the center of town you will see on your right a company called Team Däck, turn right at this point and follow the dirt road to Borntorpet.
If you are coming from anywhere else in Sweden, please check http://www.eniro.se/ for maps.
Any questions? Feel free to contact us at any point: https://www.wildlovebeamer.com/contact-us/
