Mountainyoga in the Western mountains

After the long travel on Wednesday I decided to spend a quiet, relaxing weekend with a little bit of sport. So when I had read an article about http://www.mountainyoga.cn/ who offer weekend yoga retreats in the Western mountains of Beijing ("Xishan"), I had spontaneously registered.

It worked out perfectly. Not only was the weather a mere pleasure, also the place (an old buddhist temple in the Western mountains which is not being used as a religious place any more) was great. Compared to the Fragrant Hill (Xiangshan), the Western mountains offer especially one thing more: a terrific mountain panorama.

We did not only yoga, but also climbed a mountain in order to enjoy the view. Up the hill there were hardly any tourists and from the pavillion we could see as far as the Beijing skyline. We went down on another side of the mountain, so we had to walk back to the temple on a railway track. which was also being used as a hiking track. Well, maybe you also still remember your parents telling you not to play or walk on a railway track. There it was quite different: plenty of people were walking the railway track and when the train came, you just went to the side and waited until it had passed. Just have a look at the photo to have an impression yourself (of course the obligatory umbrella to protect the skin from the sun was also frequently to be found among Chinese women hikers...).

Since I have done hot yoga for the first time I really like yoga! It even stabilises my back where I had some problems at the end of last year. This weekend we did many yoga styles - most of them I liked and I would call sport.

But we also did 'Yoga Nidra': "Yoga-Nidra ("Yoga sleep"), is an expression widely used to denote the highest state of consciousness. Although yoga nidra means yogic sleep, it is actually a wakeful state of deep introversion. ." Imagine you lying on the floor with a blanket over your body. A voice tells you to find a comfortable position, to relax all parts of your body, to not fall asleep, to really not fall asleep, to totally relax, to relax your fingers, to not fall asleep, to really not fall asleep etc. Of course it's a little bit more than that, but to be honest everything my body wanted was to fall asleep in order not to have to listen to the monotoneous voice. Well, now I at least know which yoga style I don't like...