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Whether you’re an experienced yogi, new to the mat, or somewhere in between, chances are you’ve considered embarking on a yoga retreat.
These wellness getaways appeal for an array of reasons: retreats are a container for self-care, a unique way of experiencing a new (and often international) place, a time for exploration and community, and a chance to focus and hone your practice in a supportive environment.
In recent years, a new trend is cropping up in this space: the yoga summer camp, a little sister to the traditional retreat. Along with classes and wellness programming, yoga summer camps come with an extended menu of outdoor adventures, activities, games, and a chance to play around for the sheer joy of it.
What Is a Yoga Summer Camp?
Whereas yoga retreats prioritize practice, meditation, and reflection in addition to downtime and activities, yoga summer camps focus on play-based participation and extracurriculars.
“Well-being retreats can be stigmatized as being too serious or too focused on growth,” says Heather Gunn McQuillan, owner of Nature Space Resort. Located on Canada’s Prince Edward Island, the resort hosts an annual Summer Camp for Adults. “Our camp definitely more adventure focused.”
Rather than a full-on vacation, yoga summer camps invite attendees to get outside, unplug, and connect. In yoga teacher and facilitator Sarah Garman’s experience, participants in Twist Yoga’s Summer Camp for Grownups at Washington’s San Juan Islands are looking to forgo responsibilities in favor of feeling like a kid again.
“There’s often a sense of nostalgia,” agrees Katie Hagel, who oversees Kripalu’s Yoga Summer Camp, set within the retreat center’s Berkshires campus. “There’s a longing for the joy and openness of summer as a kid, when the days felt long, simple, and good.”
In short, yoga summer camps take you back in time by facilitating carefree fun punctuated by some practice and introspection, rather than the other way around. The best part? According to the camp leaders we spoke to, transformative experiences still occur.
Let’s be clear: yoga summer camp still revolves around yoga. Practice is simply one of many (many) summertime activities.
Hiking, kayaking, archery, and even campfires (s’mores and all) feature at Kripalu, along with daily practice. “This retreat is for people who want to feel expansive, playful, and connected—not just inwardly, but outwardly too,” explains Hagel.
This year, Twist Yoga took that outward ethos to the next level. In addition to morning and evening yoga classes, the program opted to separate participants into groups or “teams,” inviting everyone to partake in activities such as cornhole, badminton, and charades. Although competition isn’t typically associated with yoga, the response was all positive. “We found that everybody participated in everything,” says Garman. “There was a lot of interaction.”
A Time for Fun
Although the “seriousness” associated with retreats is a generalization and not entirely accurate (many feature excursions such as surf lessons, trips to town, and jaunts in nature), signing up for a retreat often signals a want of growth. Whether you sign up for a regular retreat or a yoga summer camp, it can be liberating (and even catalytic) to leave that self-inflicted pressure at home. A little fun may be exactly what you, and the world, need most.
“Human beings were meant to play. It doesn’t end with childhood, and when we deprive ourselves of this, we lose the sense of wonder and curiosity,” says Gunn McQuillan. “I think people are desperately in search of that right now.”
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