Samahita, yoga-core-cycle retreat in Koh Samui, Thailand

Find your body, your muscles, your sensations: refocus yourself.

After a warm and discreet welcome, we are accompanied in our room, small, simple but comfortable. Just enough time to pack our bags and put on yoga pants to join the end-of-the-day program: a core-cycle session, including 30 minutes of intensive cycling, to pedal like crazy to eliminate any negative impulse.
Lessivés, on enchaîne avec 1h de relaxation, dans le shala surplombant la mer, avec le bruit des vagues, des oiseaux et le coucher de soleil. Heaven on earth ! Difficult to find elsewhere
The surrounding nature is so present that it is not useful to accompany the course of music or specific noises. The breaths are confused with the wind, while the soft postures bring our bodies into such a state of relaxation that tears flow on their own. It must be said that our teacher, Gill, is not at his first years of teaching: after 15 years of practice, his mastery brings us into a state of absolute relaxation, even for refractory minds.

The meal, central and holistic moment in Samahita

One of the highlights of the Samahita yogis is its cuisine: after these intensive sessions, it is time to have dinner with a holistic buffet with a perfect balance between colors, the smells, the flavors …
Regarding food, the Samahita program is part of a fasting dynamic (although the yogis are free to practice it or not): this method consists of allowing the stomach to rest, for periods long enough for them can totally empty and therefore regenerate. In practice, eat early in the evening between 18h and 20h maximum, then fast ideally until lunch.
This is a method that I have been applying for several years, sometimes misunderstood by my entourage but yet so beneficial to my body that does not bury things in-essential.

All the recipes present on the buffet were thought without added sugar, without salt, without gluten and with good fats (coconut, linen, avocado …). The choice is vast, with a variation of cold starters, small salads, vegetables, sauces and dips. A little further, the hot corner, with dishes cooked and stewed in coconut milk. Finally, fruit for dessert and always a little local delicacy, without sugar, made from local fruits. No alcohol in Samahita, but the desire to drink instantly disappears at the start of the retreat and will naturally continue after returning home.
The sorting is of course put in Samahita, without plastic obviously, and being part of a reasoned and reasoned consumption approach for the planet.
After this healthy and benevolent dinner, our bodies are ready to accept the sleep that will not be delayed … (falling asleep around 21H45).

An full day at Samahita

Rise at dawn, start with a fanfare with a core-cycle course, intense, to wake the body. Teachers advocate keeping the stomach empty for morning practices, to leave the organs in serenity, leaving the body free without having to worry about energy-intensive digestion.
A few minutes to drink the morning beverage in silence (the mornings are silent in Samahita): electrolyte, lemon, salt, and we jump on our yoga mat positioned facing the sea for a relaxation session. This course, centered on fairly advanced practices, helps to decongest the mind and give practical exercises to apply at home.
We will close the morning with a session of vinyasa of 1:30, the intensity of which varies according to the teachers. The latter, alternating according to the course, and we will have the chance to make an incredible session, trying with Nabs Hadi: a fascinating man, of Kurdish origin and then installed in London dispenses physically and emotionally demanding courses, of an absolute intensity. We come out of this practice upset and appeased (in the positive sense of the word).

Classes end at 11H and resume at the end of the afternoon at 16H to re-chain on the same schedule described above (45minutes cycle, 1h relaxation, 1h yoga).
From 7am the buffet is set up, respecting the principles of fasting with the introduction of liquid drinks first, then more solid elements like vegetable yoghurt, to start from 11.30am the lunch buffet on light principles to leave the body in peace.

As you know, at Pointus we are very specialized in demanding food, we are gourmets and food occupies a primordial place in our life: all that will be served to us in Samahita, will testify to an absolute accuracy, a balance perfect in the flavors, providing a pleasure such that it will be very difficult to match.

Where does this perfection come from even when we talk about simple plates, salads, chia pudding with coconut milk, or steamed vegetables?

This comes on the one hand from the exceptional quality of selected vegetables, all organic or from reasoned agriculture. It is also by the very limited addition of enhancer(salt, sugar, spice), allowing the vegetable matter to express itself in its greatest and beautiful simplicity that the kitchen of Samahita reaches this level of perfection.
I often regret the commitment too pronounced healthy addresses that flourish around the world, and show plates too filled, too colorful, just TOO. Here is the opposite, the plates are built by desire, on simple and healthy bases, recalling the principles and speeches advocated by the great Marion Kaplan, inventor including the Vitaliseur de Marion, a staple of our kitchen for slow cooking and respectful.
In general, it is the beauty of the blends that will create the best plates during our stay: taste everything in small quantities so as not to waste and play with the seeds, spices and sauces available.

We will extend our meditation sitting around the small swimming pool of the establishment, facing the sea. Our spirit is wandering and soothed as it has not been once in this year. Our muscles are put to the test leaving on our body a beneficial fatigue, associated with a feeling of fullness.

We’ll have a light lunch, and continue our afternoon crisscrossing the surroundings with our scooter rented through the hotel. We will be back in time to continue with the afternoon classes, a gourmet dinner, and a rejuvenating sleep.
This experience will last for three days for us, but most people taking part in Samahita’s retreats are at least 1 week. Three days seem indeed too short, our body and mind just starting to accustom themselves with pleasure to this specific rhythm.

This experience will leave such positive signs in our way of life that we can no longer consider a trip without a retirement: the latter is particularly adapted to our way of living and thinking. This mode of disconnection will be for us much more effective to appease our spirit, than 10 days to furrow a distant country as we did so far.
A retreat in Morocco, combining fasting, yoga and meditation is being prepared. We will explore by fasting, another way to gain height on this world both sad and exciting.