The power of yoga can be summed up with one word: transformation. Yoga can transform your life with less stress, better sleep, improved strength and flexibility, natural weight management, and hormonal balance.

The challenge for many is the constant need to pick and choose the practices that best suit your ever-changing body and ever-changing life. When you find your focus, yoga can be a lifelong source of strength, stability, and abundant health.

Tools of Transformation is a three-day yoga retreat designed to help you discover your path toward living your best life possible through applied yoga practices. Together, as a group, we’ll explore strength and balance, breathing and mindfulness, spine and joint care, hormone balance, and more. This retreat will be 70 percent practice, 20 percent workshop-style learning, and 10 percent community connection.

Our objective is for you to leave feeling refreshed and inspired, but most importantly, equipped with the mind-body tools you need to have an amazing year. The retreat is designed for all fitness levels, all ages and backgrounds. The typical YOGABODY student is atypical. We have students and teachers from 41 countries and ranging in age from 17-74. We’re a science-based, inclusive, non-dogmatic school. Whatever your background, you’re welcome at YOGABODY.

Key Benefits of Attending

Reignite the Fire of Practice. Every single person experiences highs and lows when it comes to fitness. There are months or even years when it feels fun and flowing. Then there are times when yoga and any form of exercise just feels dull and difficult. During this retreat we’ll explore new ways of moving, breathing, and sequencing your yoga so that you can reignite your fire and reinvigorate your commitment to practice.

Manage Your Stress. The world is safer than ever, but to your neolithic brain, it doesn’t feel that way. With constant access to a newsfeed of crisis, war, and catastrophe in real time, it can be very challenging to find balance. Using yoga breathing, mindfulness, and anxiety transformation tools, you’ll have a safe and effective way to shield your nervous system from an onslaught of worry.

Improve Your Sleep. Lack of sleep increases your risk of just about every mental and physical illness imaginable, and while it’s easy for us to sleep until 10 am on the weekends and relax on holidays, how do you enjoy restorative sleep on any given Tuesday when all the responsibilities and challenges of everyday life pile up? You’ll walk away from this retreat with a checklist and an action plan.

Simplify Your Nutrition. There are dozens of diets that can help you in the short term—one to three months—but how can you find a personal nutrition plan that is easy and enjoyable enough to stick to for life? We’ll explore universal principles of nutrition so you can create a gameplan.

Stretch and Strengthen Your Body. Lifestyle fitness is an approach focused on living your best life for longer. We want to hike, travel, carry kids and grandkids in our arms, ski, swim, and remain active for as long as possible. To enjoy an active lifestyle well into your later years, you need muscle strength and mobility. We’ll address both from a moderate, lifestyle-focused perspective, so you have focus and a plan.

Connect with Like-Minded People. The research is clear. The single thing that will have the biggest impact on your health is the people you surround yourself with. If your friends and family are not on a path to lifestyle fitness, it’s nearly impossible to do it alone. At this retreat, you’ll meet diverse but like-minded people to share ideas, share experiences, and build friendships with. Community matters more than anyone realizes.

Is this Retreat Right for You?

This event is designed for health-minded people looking to live their best life and who are excited about the idea of gathering tools to make that happen. This is not a teacher training event or an advanced-level practice event. This is a personal growth and personal practice retreat where you will likely get as much or more from your time in-between sessions connecting with other students as you will from our structured sessions themselves.

Ask Yourself…

• Are you excited to reignite the fire of your practice?
• Are you open to learning new tools for stress, sleep, nutrition, anxiety, and selfcare?
• Are you interested in meeting others on a similar wellness path?
• Are you open to stepping outside your comfort zone and trying something new?
• Do you consider yourself a curious, lifelong learner?

Frequently Asked Questions

Location – Barcelona, Spain

The retreat will take place at the HCC Montblanc Hotel, located in Via Laietana. This street is a major thoroughfare in Barcelona, in the Ciutat Vella district. The avenue runs from Plaça Urquinaona to Plaça d’Antonio López, by the seafront, and separates the neighborhoods of the old city on either side – El Born on one side and Barri Gòtic on the other. The area is home to some of Bracelona’s most important buildings with different architectural styles, such as Modernista Art Nouveau, Art Déco, and Noucentista neo-classical. It is also very well connected with the Urquinaona Metro station only 2 minutes away and a 15-minute walk to La Barceloneta, the Barcelona seaside neighborhood.

Travel Details

• 20 September is arrival day / 23 September (late) or 24 September (early) is departure
• For our Mindful Marathon bonus day, plan to leave very late on 24 September or even better on 25 September (day after)
• Recommended hotel: HCC Montblanc Hotel
• Airport: Aeroport del Prat – Barcelona International Airport
• Ground Transportation (11 miles): taxi, car rental, Uber
• To learn more about Barcelona and travel recommendations, please visit this page.

What is a Mindful Marathon?
(Optional – September 24th)

During the first pandemic lockdowns of 2020, I started running to get out of the house, to sweat, and to relieve stress. My initial sessions were around 20 minutes. When you begin running in middle age, it’s a humbling experience. Fortunately, there was no one on the streets except me. I didn’t keep track of my distance or my pace for nearly a year. I put my shoes on, shuffled down to the park 10 minutes away, and then turned around and came home.

My rules for running were – and still are – very simple: Don’t get hurt, don’t run through pain, and try your best to run every day. With that simple protocol, I ended up averaging 20-25 km per week, sometimes more. I even managed to complete a marathon in Barcelona in 2021. It was amazing to spend the morning with 20,000 people, most of whom were there for the same reason as me – for the experience.

During long runs and extended hikes, you have time and space to introspect. As the hours pass and you fall into a rhythm, memories rise and fall, plans come together, and there’s a remarkable clarity to life that unfolds when you’re physical spent and mentally present. I wondered to myself: What if there were no numbered bibs? No time clocks? No first or last place?

And what if each of us, instead of spending time alone, what if we committed to being together side-by-side for the entire day? And what if we shaped the experience with writing assignments designed to help us get the most out of the occasion? And so, the Mindful Marathon was born.

How it Works

• Jog 26.2 miles or walk 13.1 miles
• Start at 6 am and finish at 6 pm
• Jog or walk every hour on the hour
• After each loop, you’ll complete a short journal assignment
• We’ll then eat, drink, clean up, rest, and do it all over again
• Rules: don’t get hurt, don’t run or walk through pain, slow down or skip a loop whenever you need to — but finish the race

12hr Mindful Marathon Journal

There are twelve writing assignments, one for each hour of the journey. Some are reflective, some are future-focused, and all are designed to provide mental focus and structure to this mind-body journey we’ll take together. Note: all writing is private and personal, not shared or published for anyone except yourself.

Mindful Marathon Schedule

Lap #1

• 07:00 am | Marathoners run 4.2 miles / Half-ers walk 2.1
• Finish – 8 am | Rest, eat, prepare

Laps #2-12

• :00 on the hour | Run 2 miles or walk 1 mile
• :30 on the half hr| Eat, drink, rest
• :45 on the ¾hr | Group writing assignments
• Repeat until all laps complete

Closing Ceremony

• 07:00 pm Closing Ceremony

• Refillable water bottle
• Energy bars and/or gels
• Light / simple snacks
• Electrolytes and/or salt
• x2-4 changes of clothes
• Bathroom supplies: toothbrush, soap, towel (showers available)

Mindful Marathon Questions

Schedule of Events

Schedule subject to changes. *Extra tuition / extra registration required

Meet the Teachers