by Ingrid van der Straaten | June 2019
When you think about yoga, yoga holidays or retreats, Thailand is high on the list of places to go- after India of course!
Yoga…..for most people it stands for: flexible, young, slender bodies, difficult positions and glamorous pictures…and most of us might think: “That is not me!”
We know…. We recognize that from our own personal view we had on yoga and from the reactions of many of our visitors who are reluctant to try yoga for the first time.
We are the people at Eco-Logic Thailand, a small nature resort in the middle of the jungle, close to the town of Ranong in Thailand. Our resort was set up especially to support the Thai Child Development Foundation, a local run charity.
Over the years we were blessed to welcome people from all over the world who dared to get off the beaten tourist track. Our visitors enjoyed our organic farm and cooking courses, hiking and swimming at the waterfall, day trips to secluded beaches, islands and hot springs in the national parks that are all around us.
Eight years ago one of these visitors was a passionate yogi. She was very impressed with the location, nature, the area and the possibilities to have yoga classes there. We were a bit reluctant; perhaps because of the image we had of yoga (indeed the flexible, young, slender bodies, the glamorous people who might talk about karma all day long). But our friend new better, convinced us and volunteered to offer yoga classed as a trial for us. And our guest and visitors loved it!
As she explained:
“Yoga is not a competition, Yoga is something you do for you and only you. Yoga is to be aware of your breathing, your posture, your body. Yoga helps you focussing and feel good. Yoga is not just a physical, but also a mental experience. But most of all: yoga is great and a lot of fun to do!”
Nowadays yoga has become something you do with many people in a sport school. Something to become fit (and slender and glamorous)… You can do so different ways of yoga: with animals, beer yoga and much more of those commercially promoted forms of yoga. Believe me, that is not yoga is meant to be. Yoga is what I explained to you. And that is what people should experience when they do yoga!”
And so we started to offer yoga to our guest and visitors at Eco-Logic Thailand. We build a beautiful yoga shala and invited yogi’s from all over the world to come and teach and practice. And they came. And they were not at all young, flexible, glamorous (well….some of them where), but most importantly: all of them were lovely, kind and very down to earth people. People who loved nature, who loved practice yoga as it was meant to be. Who loved Eco-Logic Thailand and practicing the real yoga, together with other visitors and guests.
Many of our guests and visitors had never experienced or practiced yoga before, most of them for all the reasons we named above.
Here, at Eco-Logic Thailand, in the safe and friendly environment of our yoga shala and together with our professional and certified yoga teachers, they came to experience what yoga was for them. And many of them choose to continue to practice yoga - as they had experienced it here – when they went back home.
Eco-Logic Thailand is very happy with the fact we learned about the true meaning of yoga, and are happy to offer it to anyone who likes to give it a try.
But we are not only doing yoga! We are not just a yoga resort! We are a family friendly nature resort, where everybody is welcome. Solo travelers, families, groups, companies. Anybody is welcome. And they can be part of many, many activities with us. Even yoga.