09 Mar RE:treat, Off the Cuff: Snowga? Really?
These days, yoga dances with many unlikely partners: nudity, marijuana, SUP, heat, even dogs. But snow? Yes, according to this recent article by Courtney Rubin in The New York Times entitled “Frozen Yoga? It’s Snowga.” Pairing yoga and snow in March brings us home, where a locally grown company named RE:treat offers yoga-inspired adventures all year ‘round – though so far no snowga in Telluride. But when the snow melts, the region hosts the Telluride Yoga Festival, which is introducing SUP yoga at the 8th annual event in July. It’s all about meditations in motion.
For more, read on…
In Bozeman, Mont., participants in a twice-weekly class snowshoe to their destination as a warm-up, do about a half-hour of yoga, including the reverse warrior pose, and then snowshoe home. Credit Lynn Donaldson for The New York Times
It seemed as if yoga should have exhausted its opportunities for expansion by now, considering it has already made such unlikely alliances as marijuana, dogs, karaoke and stand-up paddleboards. But the yoga creep carries on with what may be the practice’s strangest bedfellow yet: snow.
This latest incarnation of yoga is called, inevitably, snowga, and it’s done outside in freezing temperatures, that archenemy of stretching, often as a mash-up with snow sports like skiing and snowshoeing.
In Bozeman, Mont., this winter, a company called Flow Outside began a twice-weekly class in which participants snowshoe to their destination as a warm-up, do about a half-hour of yoga, and then snowshoe home. Stowe Mountain Lodge in Vermont offers snowga (calling it Stowega) with both skiing and snowshoeing. And at Finger Lakes Yoga Escapes in Canandaigua, N.Y., an owner, Jennifer Hess, said snowga (her version is with snowshoes) has been such a success that she plans to introduce a class at night, with headlamps.
There’s also a popular hashtag, #snowga, with yogis posting pictures of themselves holding poses in the snow, occasionally with ad hoc props, like snow shovels. The hashtag took off a couple of years ago, after two of yoga’s Instagram stars — Laura Kasperzak (one million followers) and her high school friend Masumi Goldman (125,000 followers) — began using it.
Laurie Riedman, who regularly skis, snowshoes and practices yoga (but never all together), said she was surprised by how good a combination snowga was when she tried it recently in Canandaigua.
“Yoga and cold just sounds like an oxymoron,” said Ms. Riedman, a public relations consultant. “But I got hot. There were some parts where I had to open up my coat and take my gloves off. We were really working out…”
RE:treat is a relatively new, Telluride-based yoga-inspired lifestyle adventure company offering first-class outings (or retreats) in the mountains of Telluride and similar locales abroad. The company’s tagline says it all: “Elevated lifestyle adventures.” The founders of RE:treat – Babsi Glanznig, Nicole Nugent, and the source of the above curation, Georgie Bishop – hail from three different continents, America, Austria and Australia, but the ties that bind are yoga, travel, food, and mountain sports. The programs the threesome offers through RE:treats in America and Europe naturally reflect their shared passions: Ashtanga, Forrest, and restorative yoga practices, skiing, hiking, wellness advice, massage, local taste treats and beverages.
In 2015, RE:treat is hosting a Yoga Glamping Safari in the desert southwest of the U.S., a yoga + hiking retreat in the Italian Dolomites, a luxurious yoga adventure escape in Santorini Greece.
Contact RE:treat to plan your next yoga vacation. 970-729-8108 or PO Box 2615, Telluride, CO. 81435.
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