Our Yoga Shala: A Beautiful Japanese Tatami room
Today, we are going to introduce our yoga shala, which is the place that our daily yoga and meditation practice happens!
It is located in the center of our main building, with the Japanese traditional tatami floor (grass mats) and shoji (paper screen) sliding doors. We have Manduka yoga mats equipped at site, and also cotton blankets and bolsters to make you comfortable and postures accessible.
In one side of the room, we have a beautiful Tokonoma (床の間), or simply toko (床), which is a recessed space in a Japanese-style reception room.
Usually some items for artistic appreciation are displayed in this space, and we have this beatuful Kakejiku (掛け軸), which is a Japanese hanging scroll, and also tsubo (壺), a Japanese pot.
As it’s such a photogenic space, we see retreat participants often taking photos of themselves in front of it.
When we have the local monk coming over to guide us through Buddhism Shakyou (写経) calligraphy meditation, we set some low tables and Zaisu (a Japanese chair with back and no legs) in our shala, and the space turns into a special and sacred writing room.
Practicing asana on Tatami floor always gives me the feeling of the warmth, not necessarily physical heat, but it’s more like the sense of gentleness, the feeling of the nature.
It also challenges our balance more compared to the normal hard floor, as tatami floor is soft.
There is a long corridor running along the shala, with shoji (paper screen) sliding doors separating them. If it’s not too cold, we run the class with the shoji open so that we can enjoy the view of the beautiful Japanese garden while we practice.
The moment when you bring yourself up from shavasana at the end and see the garden in front of you feels amazing!
A pine tree is one of the most common trees in Japanese traditional gardens. The picture above is the one we have at our retreat site, and we can see this beautiful tree from our shala.
The gardeners always work so hard, looking after the flowers and trees. In each season, they have completely different display by seasonal colors, and always entertaining throughout a year.
During our April programs, we can see gentle pink of cherry blossom flowers in March and April, white and vivid pink of azalea flowers in May, subtle blue and gentle purple of hydrangeas in June. During our autumn programs, we can enjoy the colorful leaves of red, orange and yellow.
We are offering seasonal programs in spring and autumn so that people can experience the best time of a year in Japan. Please follow our socials or check our website to find out our upcoming programs.
We are looking forward to meeting you in Fukuoka!