A Retreat That Is Not About Escaping.

When people hear the word retreat they often think of leaving the world behind. A getaway. An escape. But the Annual Cultural Retreat in Malaysia is not about stepping away from life. It is about returning to it.

Every year a small group gathers not to disconnect but to connect more deeply. To land, to culture, and to the living stories behind the practice of yoga. We share meals with local indigenous communities and listen not to extract their wisdom but to be in relationship. We explore mudras and asanas through the lens of Bharatanatyam dance with a local teacher, tracing the threads between movement and cultural memory. We roll rice in our hands and stir sambal in a home kitchen to learn Malaysia’s iconic Nasi Lemak not just as a recipe but as a story of care, lineage, and everyday ritual.

Culture is not an accessory to yoga. It is the ground it grows from.

That is why this retreat is not a yoga getaway. It is not about escaping real life. It is about returning to the roots that make the practice meaningful. It is about sitting with both tradition and change, sometimes literally around a shared table.

We also take time to explore Ipoh, a town thirty minutes outside of Gopeng, where cave temples hold a century of prayers, where a one hundred year old teashop still measures leaves by hand, and where food tells the story of migration and survival.

Every time I host this retreat I am reminded that yoga does not live in isolation. It lives in people, in places, and in the stories that carry it forward.

Maybe that is the work we are really doing. Not just practicing poses, but practicing remembering.