Hula? check! Wellness? with an in-house "healthy living" chef - check! Retreat? check -- with built-in down time and optional activities and private house with an ocean view. We visited cultural practitioners and were immersed in Hawaiian culture. I came for Hula, and I left with Aloha! Forever grateful for experiencing the week with Kumu Andrea, Renee and Chef Dana.

A wonderful hula immersion experience. Accommodations were spacious, peaceful, comfortable and conducive to the group gathering. The food was amazing--healthy and delicious and nourishing with variety and great flavors. The only thing that could have been improved in the accommodations was the space for the dancing itself. The only shaded area was cramped for our group size and had an unforgiving hard surface. The excursions and exposures to Hawaiian culture and the gorgeous landscapes were something I will always remember and carry with me. The hulas we learned were beautiful and perfect for the setting and the group. At my beginner level, I did feel it was overwhelming and stressful to learn two complete hulas from scratch in one week. My brain could not take in all the choreography and many of the steps became muddled in my mind. As a result, I was never able to reach the place of being able to relax and enjoy the precious experience of dancing with our group in the amazing settings--my brain was still struggling to remember and to keep up. I was never able to experience the more meditative and spiritual levels I hope to achieve in the dance. In the future, I would vote for learning only one (kahiko) hula so that everyone could achieve greater mastery of it and enjoy the feeling of knowing the choreography and being more present for the experience. Alternatively, if we had received some of the choreography in advance, we might be able to do much of that memorization work ahead of time and then be able to enjoy more of the fruits of that work during the retreat itself. Those are just small comments in thinking about how it could be improved. Overall it was a wonderful, life changing, peak experience I was grateful to be a part of and will never forget. Thank you so much for all your thoughtful planning and your open hearted teaching and care for everyone.