Description
Birthlight Well Woman Yoga & Well Woman AquaYoga Retreat in Tuscany, Italy
30th October – 5th November 2023
A 5 full days, 6 nights retreat for women’s renewal, self-healing and deepening knowledge in all phases of the life-cycle. Enjoy experiencing practices that balance, replenish, and enhance female energy and health through Well Woman Yoga or Well Woman AquaYoga and being in circles with other women.
The programme includes daily Well Woman yoga or Well Woman AquaYoga, somatic movement, marma, creative expression art and shamanic practices for those who wish to explore, as well as time in nature.
Join us on this retreat if you have already trained or want to train in Well Woman Yoga or Well Woman AquaYoga and would like to deepen your understanding of the practices or are simply curious about experiencing either.
Whether you choose to focus your retreat on aqua practices or land practices, this retreat is a unique opportunity to benefit in-person from Françoise’s recent deepening of Well Woman Yoga as an integrated set of practices to promote women’s wellness irrespective of age or health conditions.
Nurturing on this practice week retreat will be supported by Françoise Freedman and 4 other Birthlight tutors with optional pre-breakfast after dinner creative sessions.
Daily Schedule
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Optional Pre-breakfast practice session every day, different every day |
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8am |
Breakfast |
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9.30am |
Yoga studio Yoga practice for all (both options) |
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11am |
Break |
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Aqua Yoga Option: Well Woman Aquayoga Pool session for those on the AquaYoga Training and those following the AquaYoga retreat Yoga Option: Yoga in the Studio for those following the Well Woman Yoga retreat or Well Woman Yoga training. |
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12.30-1.30 |
Lunch |
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Free time- group/individual walk, individual therapy booked with centre, opportunity for individual pool/land practice. |
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3pm |
Afternoon sessions pool or studio |
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7.30pm |
Dinner |
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8.30-9.30 |
After dinner optional creative sessions |
The Location: Sasseta Alta is an organic farm, training venue and aquatic centre built on an ancient site close to hot springs in west Tuscany (3km from the mediaeval perched village of Scansano). It is a place of beauty that integrates ecology, technology and artful design. The spacious yoga room looks out to the rolling hills and the spa quality warm indoor pool, designed for Watsu training, is ideal for Aqua Yoga and simple relaxation.
About Françoise
As a well-known pioneer of innovative therapeutic yoga accessible to all women, since the 1990s Françoise has not ceased to develop her practice to better meet women’s needs, accumulating a wealth of knowledge and teaching experience now offered as legacy training.
Françoise will link simple and safe shamanic techniques from the Amazon region to open the doors of perception and relate them to the teachings of Yoga. For this we will first develop awareness of how we use transition spaces (inhalation-exhalation, tension-release, end of stretch-recoil, anger-sadness, separation-connection). Both Yoga and shamanic practices focus on the achievement of a harmonious balance through a mastery of these transitions. A few easily accessible somatic practices can create insights about transition states and help us manage shifts.
About Kirsteen
An experienced yoga trainer and craniosacral therapist, Kirsteen has worked closely with Françoise for over a decade. With a background in Hatha and Ashtanga yoga she has been teaching yoga since 1998 and began tutoring for Birthlight in 2008. Kirsteen is passionate about nurturing students’ professional development on every training course and enhancing their ability to use new understanding creatively to best serve the students in their own classes and enhance their personal practice. She has taught yoga in various countries including Portugal, Australia and New Zealand and tutored courses in many more. She considers herself very fortunate to have found Birthlight before the birth of her daughter and has experienced first hand how deeply Birthlight practices work both in herself and in the women in her classes. Kirsteen is continually inspired by the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh and the transformative alchemy of being in women’s circles in nature.
About Katy
Katy Tutors and teaches Aqua Yoga for Pregnancy (Aquanatal yoga), Aqua Yoga for Health, and Well Woman Aqua Yoga. She also uses Aqua Yoga to teach children and adults, especially those with additional needs.She still finds it truly amazing how Yoga in the water allows you to practise a wide range of movements which are not always possible with Yoga on land, and loves the spiralling nature of the water on the body and the calmness found in floating. Aqua Yoga has taught her to feel how her body moves and how it benefits from those special subtle Birthlight Yoga sequences so much so that she has also trained in Yoga on land too.
About Belinda
Belinda has been teaching Birthlight yoga for over 20 years and still delights in how well received and effective it is within our women’s circles across the globe. She has run classes for many years for women at different life stages from pregnancy to postnatal to menopause and beyond. She is hatha yoga trained but open to the richness of different styles and traditions of yoga, enjoying practising and offering both flow and stillness.
On a personal level, she came to Birthlight Yoga soon after completing my family, but has benefitted from it hugely during my long postnatal recovery as well as my menopausal years and now feel both stronger and more energised than ever before!
A Birthlight tutor since 2015, she has been teaching on the Well Woman courses since 2019, a lot of it online during and since the pandemic. The online format works amazingly well but what she personally treasures is the human connection that is best enabled in face to face yoga with its wide array of partner and circle practices, particularly the support, joy and shared wisdom that women give to one another in our circles.
About Liese
With a passion for yoga, nutrition and women’s health through all the life phases, Liese teaches these subjects from an Ayurvedic viewpoint on several Birthlight training courses bringing the wisdom of yoga’s sister science into modern daily practices.
Liese works as an Ayurvedic Practitioner in the Netherlands and has taught and practised all the elements of Hatha yoga for many years in several different countries around the world and on various retreats.
Accommodation
All the accommodation is located within four beautifully renovated stone farmhouses in classic rural Tuscan Maremma style. Participants will be accommodated in twin or triple rooms. The property of 40 hectares, much of which is ancient woodland, provides guests with a range of paths for walks in nature. Every day the bio-restaurant prepares delicious natural organic meals, using produce from the farm in local traditional recipes. The warm and relaxed family atmosphere and the quality of personal attention make Sasseta Alta a very special place. For more about the centre go to: Sasseta Alta, Tuscany, Italy
Price: Early bird by 1st August the total cost is £990, thereafter the total cost is £1040.
NB: If you want to purchase this retreat with the Well Woman Yoga Training please first read about the Well Woman Yoga Training
or if you would like to enrol on the Well Woman AquaYoga training course please first read about the Well Woman Aqua Yoga Training .
*See T&Cs below
Payment options:
- Payment is by Paypal, card via Paypal, or bank transfer (contact us for info regarding bank transfer) and full payment is due by 1st September 2023.
- 5 payments or 3 payments due before 1st September (Birthlight payment plan).
- “Pay in 3 with Paypal” – pay with 3 instalments subject to Paypal approval (provides a more flexible repayment plan).
Included:
- 6 nights full board in shared room accommodation, in twins or triples.
- Daily Well Woman Yoga sessions, plus explorations into movement, sound, relaxation, visualisation, Ayurvedic self-massage, shamanic practices
- Optional pre-breakfast and ‘creative’ evening sessions
- For those opting for the Well Woman Yoga week the opportunity to try Well Woman Aqua Yoga in the warm pool (one active session, one relaxation session)
- For those opting for the Well Woman Aqua Yoga week the opportunity to explore and practise land yoga
- Residents’ access to beautiful indoor swimming pool
Not included:
- Transport
- Drinks
- Treatments by Sasseta Alta therapists (these can be booked directly on site during the course breaks)
- excursions
- Travel insurance
Minimum participants 10, maximum 20
How to get there:
Fly to Pisa or Rome, then Train to Grosseto and arrange a pick up or bus to Scansano for pick up to Venue.
Train from Pisa or Rome to Grosseto, which is midway between Rome and Pisa. There are trains nearly hourly from either Rome or Pisa.
https://www.italiarail.com/italy-rail-map
https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Scansano/Grosseto#r/Bus
https://www.trenitalia.com/en.html
Train: London to Grosseto: and arrange a pick up or bus to Scansano, then pick up to Sasseta Alta.
Bus from Grosseto to Scansano For travel to Scansano the nearest village to the venue.
Scansano is 28.7 km (18.5 miles) away from the coastal town of Grosseto, up in the hills. There are 5 buses daily, none on Sunday, costing £2-4. The bus journey takes 49 minutes.
Taxi from Grosseto to Scansano: 30 minutes.
Taxi Pantini: +39 0564860233 or Taxi Costa d’Argento +39 3472554303
Sasseta Alta will arrange free pick up from Scansano
It is also possible to rent a car from Pisa airport.
*Terms & Conditions
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- A 20% non-refundable deposit is required on booking and the balance is due by 1st September 2023
- All participants should take out Travel Insurance to cover the whole trip including flights/travel and cancellation due to illness or injury etc.
- Early Bird price until 1st August 2023
Cancellation Policy
If you are unable to attend the retreat for any reason please contact us as soon as possible by phone or email. Please confirm your cancellation in writing by email. To cover our administration costs, cancellation will be subject to the following charges which will be deducted before any refund of fees:
- Cancellations for the Retreat up to 30th June 2023 retreat will be refunded minus the 20% deposit.
- For cancellations after this date there will be no refunds or transfers unless the retreat is full and your place can be filled from a waiting list or you introduce a new participant. In these cases we will refund the fee, minus the deposit.
We reserve the right to cancel the retreat or replace a tutor for any reason. We will only do this in exceptional circumstances that mean we are unable to offer the retreat as advertised, or if there are insufficient numbers booked to make it viable. Should this happen, we will notify you as soon as we have knowledge of the cancellation/change and in the case of cancellation we will refund you the full fee you have paid us in respect of the retreat.
In the event of cancellation we will not be liable for any transport and/or accommodation costs or any other costs you may have incurred. Please ensure you take out relevant insurance to protect yourself against this.
We will always consider special circumstances, which may be beyond your control, before implementing these charges. Any case will be considered on an individual basis at the full discretion of Birthlight.