“Living the life you envisioned, embracing each day anew is a powerful way to live.”

Real Life. Real Tools.

Life is about change, and in the last couple of years, we have all been through a lot of change! From the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, with so many lives lost, and unemployment, to the new ways we had to learn to adjust in our everyday lives. Not to mention the social unrest that happened around the world. How we move through change is so important. How we care for and nurture our friends and family and how we care for ourselves is equally important. Having good self-care practices, and daily routines that lift us up and make us stronger from the inside, out. Plus, knowing ways to reduce stress and calm our monkey mind. Nourishing and nurturing yourself isn’t always easy. Right? Many of us experienced isolation, having to adjust to working at home, perhaps homeschooling our children, and not seeing our elderly parents. So much change!  As we get back to a new normal, as we get vaccinated so we can go out and visit people, and not have to wear a mask, we also need to get back to our self-care routines. Practices that will improve your health, strengthen your immunity, improve your sleep, and allow you to move through life with more ease.

The three disciplines, Yoga, Ayurveda, and the Alexander Technique, provide a time-tested answer to the challenges we face today.

This year’s Ojai Women’s Retreat will focus on valuable practices of self-care and strengthening our immune system. You will learn which foods, herbs, and lifestyle practices are right for you. How to calm and focus your mind when the outside world becomes too hectic, learning how to re-connect to your True Nature, that part of you that knows. Our true essence is always at peace if we only allow ourselves to quieten and listen within.

This 5-day retreat is specially designed to teach you the art of unlearning—letting go of old patterns that have long since lost their usefulness—while introducing new skills and understandings to become more rooted in your daily life, aware of how to nurture yourself to better physical, mental, and spiritual health. After being sequestered and isolated, we can step into a safe space to transition back to our normal lives~ stronger, healthier, and more optimistic for the coming year.

I invite you to step away from your life’s usual demands and join me in beautiful Ojai and experience the magic that this amazing valley holds and how the profound disciplines of Yoga, Ayurveda, and the Alexander. This year I will be hosting a smaller group to give you a deeper connection to each of these practices. I am also asking that every woman be vaccinated before coming. This will help ensure that we can come together with more confidence.

Come Experience:

• The beautiful oasis of the Ojai Valley
• Learn transformative techniques and practices in all three interactive healing modalities: Yoga, Ayurveda, and Alexander Technique.
• Make the most of the intimate setting by receiving personal attention and time with highly qualified teachers.
• Connect with like-minded women.
• Delicious, healthy, and healing meals are cooked especially for the Retreat. Plus, learn to cook healthy recipes for your constitution.
• A beautiful opening and closing ceremony that creates a container and builds on a sense of community.

“I have a very busy work…this workshop taught me how I can incorporate a 30 minute daily practice into my morning with asana, breath and meditation that really changes how I act and react in my life. Thank you!”
~ Mary P., Tampa FL.

The Retreat consists of:

• Daily breath-centered yoga classes
• Private Alexander Technique lesson
• Daily small group classes in postural re-education
• Discussions on the Yoga Sutras and how they apply to your life.
• Afternoon presentation on Ayurveda and its practical application to strengthening your immune system, nourishing your body, and maintaining your vital energy.
• Food as Medicine ~ how to create a diet that supports your body.
• Learn to cook healthy & Ayurvedic Cooking for your body type.
• Working with the 5 sense therapies ~ what ones are right for you!
• Powerful meditation practices that destress the nervous system.
• Discover the power of breathwork (pranayama) ~ how it can balance your whole system.
• An evening discussion of ways to bring self-care practices into everyday living.
• An evening of fun and celebration! Good food, sharing, and a closing ceremony to remember.

“The success of Yoga does not lie in the ability to perform postures but in how it positively changes the way we live our life and our relationships”
~ T.K.V. Desikachar

Key benefits you will take home:

• Better Posture and Balance
• A nourishing Yoga & Ayurveda practice to use every day
• Ways to create ‘space’ in your life
• Reduced tension and pain
• What foods & spices are right for you
• Cooking Ayurvedic/Healthy food with recipes
• Meditation practice
• Key ‘tools’ to manage stress & keep you on the path to wholeness
• Healing Sensory modalities that are right for you

Set aside time to do this important inner work:

As women, it is important to take time and retreat to a place of quiet and beauty. To reflect. To discover that wise, eternal aspect of yourself and connect more deeply with your true nature as Spirit. Join me and allow your story to unfold…

3 Powerful paths coming together to create the results designed personally for you

This retreat not only offers you an immersion into daily Yoga and Ayurveda practices that will support health and well-being. It also gives you a clear understanding of the Alexander Technique. You will learn to think with your body in such a way that allows less tension as you move…whether in walking, working at your computer, driving a car, participating in sports or practicing yoga.

“These three disciplines have profoundly changed my life and have taught me how to live happily in the present moment.”
~Carol Prentice

Our workshop is designed for your individual level

• Beginner level: Build a practical foundation in Yoga, Ayurveda, and Alexander Technique.
• More Experienced: Deepen your understanding of these three disciplines.
• Yoga/Ayurveda/Alexander Teachers or Trainees: Enjoy learning and deepening your own training with more experienced teachers.

Carol Prentice has been a leading expert in the Mind/Body field for over 37 years. She believes that given the right tools, you can heal and transform your own life. Having overcome chronic back pain, depression, and major digestive issues, she knows how powerful these three disciplines can positively affect your life. Carol has also dealt with divorce, raising her two daughters as a single mom, the death of her parents, menopause, and how age changes one’s perspective on life. She is passionate about helping women find their inner voice and create a path to health, grace, and living a life of optimal health and joy. Carol graduated from Alexander Training Institute in San Francisco under the direction of Frank Ottiwell in 1986; she furthered her studies with first-generation Alexander Teachers Marjorie Barstow, Walter & Dilys Carrington, and Marjory Barlow. Carol is a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist and Pancha Karma Specialist (Ayurveda Body Therapies) and a graduate of the California College of Ayurveda, where she was the Director of their Internship Programs for 8 years. Carol has been a student of yoga since the early ’80s, but it wasn’t until she met Mr. TKV Desikachar in 2009 that she experienced the true healing side of yoga. She graduated from the Healing Yoga Foundation in S.F., a 500-hour teacher training program in the tradition of T. Krishnamacharya. She is currently enrolled in a 100-hour Foundations of Yoga Therapy with Optimal State Yoga. As Ayurveda and Yoga are the sister sciences to each other, Carol, along with her Alexander training, has developed a hands-on approach to working with these three systems of learning to help empower people in their own process of healing. Carol can be found at carolpprentice.com and www.alexandertechniqueworkshops.com

Tuition Rates

Ojai Women’s Retreat hopes to return in 2024. This year I will be hosting the Ojai Retreat from my beautiful home. I am limiting the retreat to only 6 women to give more individual attention and to allow us all to feel safer. I am also requesting that everyone will need to be vaccinated to attend the retreat.  The vaccines allow us to get back to some sense of normalcy as we come together.

I look forward to coming together this year for the Ojai Women’s Retreat in May so that we can revitalize our Body, Mind, and Spirit after these trying times that we have all been through.

Tuition:

To confirm your space and room a $500 deposit is due upon registration. Please go to this link to fill out the registration and put down your deposit. Ojai Women’s Retreat Full Payment due on May 1, 2022. Pricing includes opening and closing night dinners, 4 breakfasts, 4 lunches. Plus snacks and beverages. Meals will be prepared especially for the retreat. High quality, organic food, Ayurvedic based to support your well-being.

Discounts offered:

$100.00 tuition discount for full-time students. This applies to students in a 3-year teacher-training program in these disciplines, a college or university student.

Bring a friend and receive $100 off your full base fee.

Feel free to call Carol Prentice if you have any questions!

Cancellation Policy

For cancellations before April 20th, (last day) we will refund all of your payments except the deposit. For cancellations between April 20th and May 1, THERE IS NO REFUND; however, we will credit any payments over the deposit to our next Hands-On Retreats workshop in 2023. For cancellation after May 1st there is NO REFUND AND NO CREDIT; however, retreat fees may be transferred to another person.

Please know that if we end up back in quartine for some awful reason. I will give refunds.

Come join me! I look forward to seeing you in Ojai!