So I keep falling asleep around 11pm, then waking up at 1:30am and not being able to sleep again until 6am when I need to wake up at at 6:45am – 7:30am for the beach walk! So this morning I slept in til 7:40am and skipped the beach. But that’s okay because today is heavy yoga/chanting day!
Started off with breakfast of fresh fruit, plain yogurt and muesli with a green juice.
Breakfast 2nd Course was 2 poached eggs with vegetables
Then we headed off to True Love studio where they were having a special day of teachers visiting for different hour long sessions. The property is lovely 🌱🌿
Session 1: Magic of Breathing with Alina
The sessions were in an open air upper level of the building with high ceilings and fans. It was bright and airy with a breeze.
[wpvideo 4leEjWwn ]
We went through a series of Pranayama breathing techniques and Kriya yoga used to build up a lot of energy. The instructor had such a positive happy energy about her and was clearly excited to share what she knew with us, so that definitely added to the enjoyment. The techniques added heat to our upper backs which was so weird. It was a lot of quickly pulling your body in different directions repetitively while simultaneously breathing forcefully out of your nose. It caused a lot of head pressure to be honest and while I felt super energized I also almost had a headache! I decided to video the last few moves of the class.
[wpvideo 9Tt34Y9A ]
The last thing you see me doing is this tongue breathing technique. Bhakti – cooling breathing. It was very interesting! You place your tongue in a tube and stick it out and breathe in slowly, then out deeply. It’s so weird because it feels like someone else’s tongue is in your mouth haha. Try it it’s trippy! But effective 🙂
Session 2: Vinyasa Yoga
This was so challenging, and hilariously after class she said “that wasn’t a hard practice, right? Normal”. I was dripping sweat like I do in CorePower HPF where it’s heated to 105 and they have a humidifier on! The teachers here are so graceful and their form looks so pretty for lack of a better word. It’s making me want to take some classes on proper form. Here’s the beginning of class
[wpvideo 2QnLpmO6 ]
Lunch at the villa
Session 3: Kundalini Yoga with Gwendolyn
This was really nice. The woman was from Holland and has been in Bali teaching for the last 4 years. She spoke a lot about your inner power, letting go of expectations and pressures, and living your true self without judgement. It was a very positive practice, and shockingly difficult. It was all sitting on our mats, and went through a series of breathing exercises open or cleanse your chakras.
It started out with some light meditation and listening to her philosophy/goals. This is boring to watch so skip it haha, just putting it in here because I took the vid lol.
[wpvideo EWkCEPu1 ]
Here are the exercises she led us through. It looks simple enough, but my back and arms are SO sore after this.
[wpvideo l8BEY0Cc ]
Session 4: Fifth Chakra Mantra Singing
This was also lovely. The Russian teacher walked us through exactly how to say each word in the chant and where in our bodies it should come from. It differentiated by emphasis, length, and volume and tone. We did 2 chants and a song over the hour. Here’s a 1 minute clip of the first chant. Vid is of the studio ceiling.
[wpvideo FI7xnVMp ]
When we got back to the villa I jumped into the pool and the temperature was so cool and perfect 😁
We got hour long body scrub massages and it kinda burned! I was like this lady is scrubbing off my skin along with my spray tan 😂 But I powered through and now my skin feels like silky butter 🤗 Took a shower and decided to skip sunset tonight and just relax. I am TIRED but very happy. Today was exactly what I was looking for coming here.
Neeeext I put some hair products in Karen’s hair and taught her how to scrunch to create curls lol. She claims she just has frizzy hair and I told her frizz is just a curl waiting to happen!
Varney let me use her red light therapy facial thing. Her son said it looked like I stuck my head in an oven hahahahaha
Then dinner and I went to bed at 7:30pm fully exhausted.
Expenses:
- 20,000 Rupiah tip for massage (didn’t have change to tip her the first day so gave the recommended tip amount for two massages) ($1.41 USD)