teacher trainingThe Important Part
Hear from those who've experienced...
I am very happy I got the chance to come to your retreat, and I'd like to thank you for making it available to me. You are a brilliant teacher and I can only hope that I will know half as much as you do one day. This week has been a fabulous source of inspiration for me - every class left me with "WOW." You have helped me bring my practice into a new level, and have also cleared my questions and mistakes I've been making. I only wish I had a month, not a week! I hope to keep learning from you in the future, and I hope I wasn't too fastidious with my many questions and queries.
The place was beautiful, the service excellent, the food amazing. Good choice!
Barbara Hellisova
From the first day, Elena created a warm and welcoming atmosphere. She was very sensitive to everyone's needs without in any way over organising us and it was a pleasure to be on this yoga week. There was a relaxed and happy atmosphere throughout despite different people arriving at different times (and Luigi arriving at strange times!) It was very interesting to explore different schools of yoga and, hoping to receive more "technical" information by coming on the trip, I was certainly not disappointed! I also found the question and answer session towards the end particularly helpful.
Whilst often places do not quite live up to their advertisement, the Bano Santo Hotel surpassed my expectations - especially
as regards the quality of the food and wine and the opportunity to try numerous traditional, local dishes. This was far from
an English package yoga holiday transported to a sunnier location. I really appreciated the opportunity to try local produce
in a genuinely Italian environment. Mariella was extremely kind and she was patient and sensitive enough to enable me to
make several arrangements with her despite the complete lack of any common language.
Naomi Hawkes
I'm truly grateful for having been a part of this great week. The hotel was nice, the landscape so beautiful and the service excellent..
Each single day was an inspiration and gave me an insight into Yoga practise I had never been given before. Elena is an
amazing teacher. Thanks to her expertise, her great teaching as well as her lovely personality, I was able to go into
poses I've never been able to go into or I've never done before. I never felt any pain or strains, which I always felt
when I did Yoga intensives before. And this time, everything just came naturally because my body and mind were ready for it.
Sometimes it was hard to get up this early in the morning, but it was worth getting up every day, as I always felt totally
refreshed after each morning session. I wish this week had lasted forever. Thank you for an amazing time Elena. I hope to
learn a lot more from you. Thanks also to my fellow students. It was lovely meeting you all and sharing this experience with you.
Kerstin Ludwig
I thought the retreat was wonderful and can't thank you enough for the wonderful opportunity. I learned so much and was inspired all over again to pursue yoga teaching seriously. It is no coincidence I resigned only a couple of weeks later!
The group was lovely, a really good mixture of personalities and abilities. The hotel, setting, food, hospitality was amazing. And your classes were just brilliant.
I liked the way you incorporated different styles/ influences into the classes ... Anusara, Shiva Rea, Astanga, Monks etc and the way you focused our attention on to different parts of the anatomy ... scapular placement, puffing out the kidneys, hip alignment etc etc. I feel I have really taken on board what you said (repetition works!) and find myself bringing what you taught me into my practise.
The only thing I would have found more helpful for us (teachers at least) would be to have spent some time at the end of the lesson to recap the postures. I found it hard to keep taking notes during the practise and I missed out many elements of the sequences. It would be good to have these just so that when practising they could serve as a prompt in my mind to what you said. I would also like to think about the way in which you linked/ ordered the asanas. We did this with Camille after the workshop last week and it was very helpful.
In all I had a lovely time. It was good to get my body and mind into some sort of equilibrium again.
So thank you, thank you, thank you!
Fiona Khondoker
I really had no expectations as to what I should expect for a week of intensive yoga practice, and I had jokingly referred to it as “yoga boot camp” to a few of my friends. What I can say was that it was definitely intensive, but with a lack of “drill sergeant” mentality.
Firstly, as a current student of Elena, I knew she was a great teacher. I attend Yoga and Pilates classes with her weekly, but practicing with her for 4 hours a day showed me that she’s an amazing teacher. The course was mixed in terms of abilities, and encompassed both students and teacher training participants. However, not once did anybody feel that they couldn’t keep up or were not challenged enough. Elena provided variation of postures and taught different yoga styles at every class, and I was impressed by how exercises were adapted to suit all. Every posture was explained in depth and the repetition of key instructions improved my practice greatly over the week.
In choosing Saturnia, Elena provided a calm tranquil environment, in which I was able to forget the stresses of the outside
world (looming unemployment) in an instance. The calm countryside, fresh air, great local produce selected for our evening meal
each evening complemented that. The Terme di Saturnia spa nearby also offered a range of services that complimented and soothed
our mind and bodies over the course of the week, and the therapists were knowledgeable, professional and provided a great service.
Coming back from the week, I felt relaxed and unburdened, and thank Elena enormously for creating an environment that was
nurturing. She really looked after us all (not easy when you have a dozen students with different needs ) and I also thank my
fellow participants for sharing the experience with me with such an open heart and mind.
Looking forward to the next retreat.
Anita Muganda