Retreat Overview

Whether you’re looking to deepen your yoga practice or simply interested in exploring Oaxaca with a more active and introspective twist, Domenica and Adrien will work with you to create a tailor-made experience.

This 7 day, 8 night retreat will include daily yoga practice and afternoon tours of Oaxaca’s vast artisanal and historical treasures. The days will begin with a vigorous early morning practice, followed by a gourmet vegetarian brunch cooked by a private local chef. Then, one of our optional afternoon activities, and a dusk restorative yoga practice leading to meditation. Evenings are free so you can explore the vibrant nightlife of Oaxaca.

Daily activities include a cooking class, pottery workshop, natural dyeing demonstrations, and hiking trips. You will tour famous artisan villages like Teotitlan del Valle, Atzompa, and San Agustin, and visit the monumental ruins of the oldest city in Mesoamerica: Monte Alban.

You will have the opportunity to begin and end every day with a yoga and meditation practice, led by Domenica Gallinatti and Adrien Colombie of Warrior Bridge and Gladis Soriano of Shanti Yoga Studio Oaxaca. On the day of your choice, you will receive a full-body massage from Gladis, combining deep tissue massage with traditional Mexican healing techniques.

Program

WHAT’S INCLUDED

  • Two daily yoga classes and meditation
  • 1 x 60” Massage
  • Daily Cultural Activity
  • Tours and entry to archeological and cultural sites
  • Cooking, art and craft-making activities
  • Transportation to activities
  • Daily brunch and afternoon snacks
  • First and last dinners
  • 8 nights accommodation
  • Access to all images from event photographer
  • 5% of profits donation to a local charity (read below)

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

  • Airfare
  • Additional activities
  • Dinner on Sunday through Friday (avg. entree in the city is around $8 USD)
  • Alcohol
  • Airport transfers
  • Personal expenses
  • Tips
  • Travel insurance

Retreat Pricing & Accomodation

Choose Your Room

You will be hosted in a beautiful 6-story designer house on the Panorámica del Fortín, on a large hill in Oaxaca’s city center, which offers the house beautiful views of the city. It is about a 10-12 minute walk to the Templo Santo Domingo and the Andador Turístico. There is a nice cafe (La Brujula) and a small cultural center (El Venadito) as well as some delicious street food (tlayudas) right down the street. The cost of the retreat will depend on the number of people and the type of room you choose, see pricing below.

2 People – Double Private Room
Features: King Size Bed, Private Bath, Shared Kitchen, Wireless Internet, Washer & Dryer

$1500.00 / PER PAIR

1 Person – Shared Room
Features: Private Bath, Shared Kitchen, Wireless Internet, Washer & Dryer, Queen and Twin Size Bed

$850.00 / PER PERSON

1 Person – Single Private Room
Features: King Size Bed, Private Bath, Shared Kitchen, Wireless Internet, Washer & Dryer

$1000.00 / PER PERSON

Activities

Your Own Local Chef!

Brunch will be served daily by Jose Luis Diaz of Chilhaucle Rojo. Jose Luis is an expert in prehispanic vegan/vegetarian cuisine, and uses his endless creativity to make inspired, flavorful, delicious meals. Every dish is a work of art. During the week we will also be taking a cooking class with Jose Luis, designing a menu, going to the local farmer’s market, and learning his prehispanic cooking techniques to make salsas, moles, tortillas, and more.

Traditional Mexican Massage

One traditional massage will be included with your package, from Shanti Yoga’s own Gladis Soriano. Gladis combines deep-tissue massage, energy healing, traditional Mexican massage techniques, and contemporary techniques like cupping to open new spaces in the body’s tissues. You will leave feeling light, open and shining. See our testimonial section and Gladis’s bio for more information.

Artisans And Adventures

Every afternoon we will take the group on (completely optional) activities around the city. You will meet families of artisans in ancient craft towns and indigenous villages. You will get hands-on experience making pottery, paper, and woven textiles with natural dyes. You will learn how to make moles and tortillas. We will go hiking and visit the ruins of the Zapotec city Monte Alban, the oldest city and largest city in ancient Mesoamerica. You will hear the Zapotec language that is still spoken, in its native land, by the people who carry on Oaxaca’s craft traditions.

Yoga Practice

MORNING PRACTICE

Morning classes will start slow but eventually build into fiery asana practices to awaken the energies of the body. We will be rotating teachers (read on for teacher bios), so that you will have the opportunity to experience different flavors of yoga practice. Classes will combine breathing exercises, vinyasa-inspired asana, and ashtanga sequences. Depending on your level and personal goals, we will explore backbending, pranayama (breathing practice), headstands and handstands, and meditation.

EVENING PRACTICE

Around sunset every evening, we will have a restorative yoga practice leading to meditation, Classes will include advanced pranayama and kriyas, guided meditation, and gentle asana to develop internal awareness and dissolve tension in the body. Depending on the group, we may incorporate partner stretching and lunar acroyoga movement into these evening sessions.

Team & Partners

DOMENICA GALLINATTI
& ADRIEN COLOMBIÉ

Domenica and Adrien will be leading the retreat. They are both certified yoga teachers from New York City. Discover their journey and philosophy in Our Story.

JOSÉ LUIS DÍAZ – CHEF

José Luis is the owner and head chef at Chilhaucle Rojo in downtown Oaxaca. He is a master of prehispanic vegetarian cuisine, and operated Chilhaucle Rojo as a farm to table restaurant until his farm was destroyed by a flood a few months ago. While he regenerates his land, José Luis uses only the freshest local ingredients and ancient cooking techniques to create artful meals that are loaded with flavor. José Luis is a personal friend, and we are so honored to have him on our team.

GLADIS SORIANO – MASSAGE AND YOGA

Gladis is an incredibly talented masseuse and yoga teacher. Early last year she founded Shanti Yoga Studio in Oaxaca’s historic center. She is a certified teacher with more than 15 years of experience, and a direct student of great masters such as Baptiste Marceau (Ashtanga), TJ Jackson (Dharma), Gerson Frau (Dharma). She has studied massage in various schools, and combines Thai massage, energy healing, cupping, crystals, and traditional Mexican healing to create a custom experience tailored to her clients’ needs. Gladis is the embodiment of feminine strength, and an inspiration to everyone she touches.

5% of our proceeds will go to 

STUDIO XAQUIXE

Procesos Proambientales Xaquixe (PPX) is a 501(c)(3)non-profit organization devoted to engineering sustainable technology for artisanal production, founded by Salime Harp Cruces and Christian Thornton of Studio Xaquixe in Oaxaca. Born from the unlikely pairing of an industrial engineer and an artist, innovation is infused into every beautiful creation to bring a new level of sustainability to every step of the process. PPX has produced alternative fuel technology for glass, ceramics, and mezcal artisanal production.

Our Story

Adrien is a creative director and mountaineer from the French Alps, and Domenica is an industrial designer and yogini from the San Francisco Bay Area. We are both designers, yoga teachers, founders, and dedicated travelers, and we love bringing people together around profound personal experiences. We met in a climbing gym in New York City, and now we’re exploring the world together, building our individual design practices, and pursuing the abundance of wisdom in the yogic traditions.

ADRIEN COLOMBIE

Breathing and Meditation is at the center of Adrien’s practice. Whether he’s ice-climbing, summiting Kilimanjaro or training his yoga asana, the same is true: everything is practice, practice is everything.

Adrien has been exploring the world in many ways. After years working in advertising in Paris, Barcelona, and NYC, he left everything behind and started traveling around the world with only a backpack. This year of exploration was awakening, and motivated him to co-found Creatives Without Borders and write the book Humans of the World. These two ambitious projects reshaped his vision of the world and the way he interacts with it.

A new chapter of exploration began, this time bringing him to the highest mountains of the world. He climbed Aconcagua, Kilimanjaro, and paraglided from the top of the Mont Blanc. It was an intense quest, full of lessons and unforgettable experiences.

But, not without its irony, it was these highest summits that brought Adrien down the most. An insatiable and uncontrollable thirst for more intensity revealed themselves as obvious signs of imbalance. That observation took Adrien into a new journey, a much softer one filled with love, compassion, and gratitude: yoga.

This was a new journey inward rather than outward, but it proved to be just as challenging as climbing the highest summits, if not more. Surrounded in NYC by the best mentors like Dharma Mittra, Sam Chase, Yoshio Hama, Sean Langhaus, Rose Erin Vaughan, and Jared McCann, Adrien has progressed quickly to make yoga a cornerstone of his life and any activity he is involved in.

Exploration is still the main theme of Adrien’s life, but today he combines his early passion for adventure with his newfound journey inward to pursue a delicate balance. That balance allows him to nurture peace, compassion, and love, and inspires him to share this journey with others through these retreats with Domenica.

DOMENICA GALLINATTI

Domenica is a healer in all aspects of her life. As a designer of sustainable home goods, a teacher of yoga, a masseuse, and a friend, she finds creativity, service, and loving community to be the most valuable experiences life has to offer.

Domenica moved to New York City as a dancer and a nursing student, but after a few years, a medical leave of absence forced her to walk away from her dance career and take a second look at her life. This transition period could not have been more of a blessing, because in that moment of clarity, Domenica transferred to Parsons School of Design to study photography and industrial design.

Domenica first traveled to Oaxaca in 2016, where she founded Mima Studios, a design studio focused on sustainably produced products for the home. Since then, she has been working and building relationships with artisans throughout the villages of Oaxaca. Her first project was a line of ceramic tableware that is fired with used cooking oil instead of propane, and now she is developing projects in jewelry, paper, and textiles.

In the summer of 2013, Domenica got her 200 Hr Yoga certification, but chose not to teach until almost two years later. During that time, she dove into her own personal practice, seeking the best teachers and guides that New York City had to offer and infusing their lessons into her own practice. Eventually, she couldn’t resist getting onto the teacher’s podium to share her practice with others, and now she teaches at resorts and studios in New York, California, and Mexico. Domenica traces her yoga lineage to great yogic masters, including Swami Rama and Dharma Mittra, and she is committed to making the great wisdom of yogic practice relatable and accessible to anyone.

Retreat Testimonials

“The teaching was amazing – they shared knowledge of the practice, their passion for it, a deeper understanding of the context and history of yoga. Their individual one-on-one instruction and support was so professional and caring at the same time. The ‘home,’ because it felt like a home, was spectacular – stunning views of the whole city of Oaxaca and the mountain ranges. The rooms, the rooftop patio, as well as all of the artistic details were charming. The daily artisanal tours to meet artists who create pottery, paper, weave cotton and wool were eye-opening. We were able to see and learn the entire process from beginning to the final beautiful product. The food -all Oaxacan- was delicious every day. Each day we thought it was our favorite. The massage healing was transformative! Whenever and wherever Domenica and Adrien create their next retreat – I’ll be there! I would recommend them to anyone who is interested in yoga, art, nature, culture, and LOVE.”

— MARTA, SAN FRANCISCO, USA

“Que te gustaba sobre este retiro? – “Toda la experiencia, no podría decir cuál entre los compañeros, la ciudad, los nativos de Oaxaca. El próximo año la repito, los organizadores cuentan con una sensibilidad increíble para organizar retiros. Era una experiencia única.”

— YOLANDA, CAMPECHE, MEXICO

Yoga Testimonials

“I would love to express the joy and excitement I experienced in Domenica and Adrien’s yoga class. As a long time yoga practitioner and instructor, I found their class to be innovative, lively, and fun, and I would highly recommend them to any yoga students interested in expanding their practice.”

— TRISH, VANCOUVER, CANADA


“Adrien introduced me to yoga, and over time he has scaled up my yoga practice. Yoga has had a huge impact on the way I can control my body and my breath, and changed my daily life.”

— NICO, BROOKLYN, USA


“Gladis’s massage was life changing in every sense. She taught me about the interconnection between the physical, the energetic, and the emotional. It gave me important insight about myself, and about how and where these things manifest in my body.”

— ALEXA, NEW YORK CITY, USA


“Domenica’s class is the perfect combination of strength building and total relaxation. Her practice ignites self-reflection, exploration of boundaries, and connection to your surroundings. I would highly recommend Domenica’s class for all stages of yoga practice.”

— MARGOT, SAN FRANCISCO, USA


“I had the opportunity to participate in a weeklong yoga program with Domenica in 2017. The classes covered basic yoga in the mornings and restorative yoga in the early evenings. It was a treat for my body, and Domenica really listened to those of us that had physical issues. There was a wide spread of abilities in the participants, but Domenica handled it with ease. In my case (64 with osteoporosis), there were no injuries, only relief and the knowledge that I could do this! It is a great feeling. She will also help you with Spanish verb questions, if you have them!”

— LISA, SAN FRANCISCO, USA


“Adrien adapted his yoga classes to complement my intense climbing practice, which helped me to reach new levels with my flexibility, breath, and body awareness. Thank you!”

— MAX, BORDEAUX, FRANCE


“La clase de yoga de Domenica es profunda, dinámica, y muy muy reconfortante, después de esta clase me siento ligera volví a ser yo. Me encanta como te lleva a meditar y disfrutar de tus sentidos. Domenica te amo, ven a darnos más clases a Isla Navidad! Namasté! ”

— REBECA, BARRA DE NAVIDAD, MEXICO


“I’ve enjoyed Domenica’s vinyasa; she fluidly links the breath with movement. Domenica’s light shines through in her practice.”

— ANN, SEATTLE, USA