"Healing is an intrinsic function within what life actually is. Life is a nurturing regenerative force. You don’t have to look for that, you are it. Ayurveda and Yoga are simply participating and aligning with that force, that pure intelligence. Ayurveda and Yoga understand the means of participation — breath, herbs, touch, right diet — earth, water, fire, and air." — Mark Whitwell

In 2024 we had the pleasure to visit Balli Ayurgramma for personal health retreat. We were so touched by the beautiful sacred architecture, the sincerity and authenticity of the Ayurvedic care, that we knew we wanted to return and invite a small group of yogis.

This this a special and healing place, where the stone floor and walls themselves participate in the Yoga process with us. Outside you can hear the cows coming and going in the peaceful rhythm of the day. It is both simplicity and luxury at the same time.

Each day we go deeply into the Yoga from Krishnamacharya, the grandfather of modern yoga, in the special fourth floor shala looking out across the forest gardens. Even the shala floor is made from healing medicinal wood.

You will immerse in the breath principles largely lost from modern yoga, that make yoga effective, powerful, safe and devotional. The breath grounds your practice in interoception, feeling the body from the inside out, yoga as whole-body prayer to Life, yoga as spiritual practice, yoga as profound internal reverie. Not yoga as exercise.

The wonderful practitioners at Balli have a speciality in structural and spinal issues.

If you have questions and would like to discuss them, send a message on whatsapp to Rosalind at +64 21 412 747 to arrange a time to talk.

Location

Balli Ayurgramma is an authentic Ayurvedic Hospital and Retreat located in the lush mountains of South Karnataka, on the border of Kerala.

Balli Ayur Grama is immaculately built in the traditional architectural methods prescribed in the sacred texts of Ayurveda. The eco-friendly, herbal, holistic  "Chathushala" (architecture with four quarters around a central courtyard) construction was accomplished in over eight years, with the blend of Indian architectural codes and principles termed Vaastu Shaastra. Every material in the building supports the body in healing, from cool stone floor tiles, medicinal wooden handrails, thick red stone walls, and mortar made with a mixture of red sand, jaggery, and rubber tree sap harvested on site.

Balli in the local language Kannada means a vine or a creeper. Etymology of the word can be traced back to the word VALLI in Sanskrit language meaning the same.

The Balli property is densely vegetated for several centuries and the Balli family has been known to be living here at least for last five generations. The property is a slice of an ecologically strategic tropical rain forest and a part of the famous Western Ghats in southern India. Balli must have been a natural, intuitive and more than poetic choice for a family name, we believe, considering what you see all around you is trees and a galore of creepers reaching out to the heavens.

Our Hosts

Vaidya Supreeth Joyal Lobo is the current generation of Ayurveda Vaidya ( i.e., doctor) in the Balli family. Vaidya Supreeth has been educated in some of the most globally renowned institutions in the Ayurveda discipline including Ph.D from Utkal University and PGDYN in Yoga and Naturopathy. Dr. Supreeth’s wife Dr Shiny Pais is a dentist herself and heads the Balli Dental Care Clinic onsite. (If you wish for specific dental care during your visit, this can be arranged for an additional fee.)

The photographs above are taken in the 25 acre property of Balli Ayur Grama - an Ayurvedic wellness center in the state of Karnataka, southern India. It has more than 800 identified and tagged species of trees and an astonishing variety of flora mostly with unique medicinal properties. That makes this one of the most unique private backyards in the world.

All the healing vegetarian dishes come from the foods grown in the forest gardens. Gourds, green vegetables, herbs, coconuts, fruits, rice… all are grown here. Balli press their own coconut oil, make their own breads, herbal mixtures, noodles, etc.

https://www.balliayurgrama.com

Vision

Our goal is for you to leave with ‘right orientation’ to health and healing in the body: not working on oneself as a project or problem, but practicing and feeling the undamaged radiance that is life itself, that is you, prior to any and all health difficulties.

  • Maximum participants 14 people to ensure one-to-one care for everybody. We expect this gathering to fill up rapidly, and so will also offer another one week gathering down at the Kerala coast in December if you’d rather do “ocean luxury” rather than Ayurvedic retreat.

  • You need to come for the full two weeks (unless you know someone and wish to take a room for one week each)

  • Each day will hold Yoga practice of āsana, pranayama, meditation, chanting and philosophy / discussion, along with….

  • Ayurvedic healing treatments, including whatever best suits your body, constitution and health: such as structural marma point therapy (massage), shirodara, rice or herbal massage, poultice, etc.

  • Additional wellbeing treatments may include: herbs, tinctures, medicated oils, basti, etc determined on an individual basis in discussion with doctors.

  • Lectures from the Ayurvedic Vaidya(s) (doctors) on Ayurvedic principles, and how to bring our daily lives into alignment with the natural elements

  • Guided walks through the food forest garden, learn the history of the land

  • Sessions on Yoga Sutras, history of Yoga, Vinyasa Krama and subtle anatomy

  • One-on-one time with Ayurvedic physician and with Mark to discuss your own home Yoga practice

  • Learn how to shape Yoga to the individual, not the individual to Yoga;

  • Deeply relax and feel the intrinsic beauty of our own nature, as nature.

Please be aware this is NOT a full panchakarma process, which is a very individual and often difficult process that needs careful prep and usually a longer time period, and would not work for everyone to do simultaneously. It is a ‘well-being retreat’ with treatments and education to serve our overall health, not a total overhaul. This is not a dramatic purge occasion!

Indian Pond Heron (Ardeola grayii), Mangalore. Photo by prathap karaka on Unsplash

Cost $3,900

What this covers

  • Full tuition with Mark and assistant teachers

  • 14 days accommodation (private room with ensuite overlooking the forest surrounds) and meals (three fresh-cooked sattvic vegetarian meals every day, herbal teas, fruits)

  • All treatments and medicines, such as shirodhara, kalara massage, basti, herbal decoctions, etc

  • Personal consultation with the doctors for wellness treatments and ongoing lifestyle

  • Pick up and drop off from/to Mangaluru (Mangalore) Airport

  • One-on-one time with Mark to refine one’s own practice, as required

  • Option for ongoing mentoring with Mark and brilliant teachers at all levels of experience around the world via an invitation to the “teacher’s gatherings” weekly for one year

  • Guided tours of the extensive food forest gardens

  • Lectures on Ayurveda principles and practice with resident Vaidyas (doctors)

  • Initiation of the heart of yoga certification process if you wish for it (this requires further teaching experience and ongoing mentoring)

  • Printed copy of comprehensive teacher training manual

How to book

  • $500 deposit upon registration confirms your place.

  • All amounts in US dollars

  • 50% of total due by May 24th

  • Full payment due by 1 October or sooner

  • 15% discount available for online studio supporting members (from at least 2024)

Schedule (flexible)

First day
Arrive to Mangalore airport any time during this day depending on your flights, be picked up, and welcomed. Gather in the evening if you arrive in time.

Regular schedule
sunrise: morning personal practice, transitioning from guided to completely personal
from sunrise onward: personal treatments, one person at a time, as required
8 am (ish): breakfast
Morning programme TBC in consultation with Balli
1pm-ish Lunch
Afternoon programme TBC
6-7 pm Evening meal
Evening – music, quiet time, or lecture

Last day, 7th December:
Morning practice, depart any time during the day

Accreditation

This programme can be used in combination with online materials for 200hr registration with the Yoga Alliance and to initiate certification with the Heart of Yoga Alliance. Our certification process to become a fully qualified teacher requires ongoing teaching practice and mentoring, an organic and personal process that takes a different amount of time for each person.

This process is designed for those who require certification for certain workplaces, however, we teach that the main requirements for a teacher are: 

  1. That you have your own daily yoga practice

  2. That you have a good teacher

  3. That you truly care about others

This training will give you the tools to meet these sincere human requirements, in addition to the ‘official’ certification.

Prerequisites / Required Reading

Prior to the course beginning, students are recommended to read: 

  1. Heart of Yoga by T.K.V. Desikachar

  2. Yoga of Heart by Mark Whitwell

  3. God and Sex: Now We Get Both by Mark Whitwell with Rosalind Atkinson and Andy Raba

These texts are indispensable for helping you discover whether this is the right training for you, based on resonance with the teachings. Please only come if you have read these texts, and done a class with Mark or watched videos online and felt a personal resonance. Teaching happens within that relationship, not as an info-dump from an authority.

FAQ

Is it the right gathering for me?

Some people who have resonated with these teachings in the past:

  • those who have been practicing in the heart of yoga and transitioning to teaching;

  • those looking for a ‘non-seeking’ and authentic approach to Ayurveda

  • those teaching yoga but feeling bored or confused or disillusioned within it;

  • those looking for a gathering that is about transformative relationships and accurate practice, not information-gathering

  • those who always sensed there is magic in yoga but haven’t been able to touch it

  • sincere devotees of diverse traditions who are looking for a whole-body practice to enact their devotion within

  • those who found Desikachar’s The Heart of Yoga or Mark’s Yoga of Heart useful as a text

  • those who have trained with students of Mark and would like to take the opportunity to “go to the source”

How is it different from most other yoga trainings?

We look back to the actual practice tradition brought through by Krishnamacharya that is mostly not available in the yoga industry. Once you taste the power of your own breath, you cannot go back.

You will not be cramming your head with endless knowledge. It is an experiential process for the whole body, allowing you to teach from the body’s intuition, not from the head’s knowledge.

Both the Ayurvedic treatments, the yoga and the philosophy is adapted to the needs of each person. You don’t have to do Yoga… Yoga does you.

We don’t presume to try and know better than each person’s natural bodily intelligence… what could know better than the force that grew you from a single cell, and presently beats your heart and moves your breath? So there is no gross adjustment, and no imposition of teacher knowledge over another person. We learn to share the breath practices through which each person can participate in the power and beauty of their own natural life. As such there is no hierarchy because each person is already the beauty of the natural world.

We usually host a very diverse group of ages, nationalities, and a balance of male and female. There is no one “type” of person drawn to study with Mark, it tends to be those drawn to what is authentic and deep, and we come in all shapes and sizes.

Those who really need highly strict schedules and predictability may struggle. The mood is fluid and responsive to the needs of the group.

The Yoga is traditional tantric hathayoga made uniquely relevant and accessible in modern life. It is not about information gathering. Yoga is in your entire embodiment or it is nowhere. We explore subtle anatomy as the movement of energy in the body, not body part anatomy from a western medical perspective. You won’t learn names of muscles, bones or detailed labels on the body from the outside (if you have a personal interest in this that’s totally fine). We will be considering how to share the precise practices that enable others to feel their own intrinsic intelligence, not trying to approximate that intelligence with mental knowledge.

Discussion will include relationships, sexuality and anything else in your life you wish to bring yogic understanding to. You can speak as much or as little as you like and be assured of being listened to with respect and love. This is a conversation, a two-way flow of information, not a broadcast or a lecture. It is not any kind of neo-tantric workshop or space. Dress needs to be conservative in respect for our Indian hosts. You will get the most out of it the more reading, questioning and exploration you bring with you. You are a co-creator of this course, not a consumer of it. It does not exist outside of your presence.

 

Use this form for questions or registration enquiries