Travel With Tamara | Yoga hits East Africa

A wave is sweeping across Kenya and its name is yoga. Yoga retreats, studios and pop-ups are appearing all over the country. The teachers are experienced, the styles are diverse and the locations – or course – are stunning. In the coming months, you can indulge in a prenatal yoga retreat in vibrant Nairobi, a Vinyasa Flow retreat on Diani’s famous beach or an aerial yoga retreat on the game filled shores of Lake Naivasha. And that’s not all. Should you wish to do the full Yoga Teacher Training – immerse yourself in yoga for a month and learn the skills needed to teach this life-enhancing practice – head for the ancient and atmospheric island of Lamu.

A shout out for this boom in yoga in Kenya has to go to the fabulous Africa Yoga Project. Now in its 10th year, AYP has single-handedly changed the face of yoga in Kenya. By offering young men and women who show interest and aptitude scholarships to Yoga Teacher Trainings, this academy of yoga has awakened Kenya’s population to the joys of yoga. The graduates of the scholarship programme ‘give back’, offering free classes and promoting wellness in their communities. In one single month, AYP teachers taught 1,582 free yoga classes.

In 2014, the Lamu Yoga Festival was founded. This event catapulted Kenya onto the global yoga map. Yoga teachers from around the world came to the idyllic island of Lamu to lead yoga sessions in an extraordinary range of styles, and yogis who wanted to experience this flocked to join. Six years on, the festival is an annual event with yoga classes, meditations, workshops, dhow cruises, beach dinners and more, in multiple venues around the islands. In true festival style, the yoga offered at the Lamu Yoga Festival is varied and inventive. Branching out from the Hatha tradition, Vinyasa Flow, Ashtanga and Yin take the core asanas and make them their own. Those who like yoga’s physical side can take their practice into the air in aerial yoga, onto the sea in stand-up paddleboard (SUP) yoga, or balancing on a partner in acroyoga. For those who prefer to look inwards, there’s meditation, chanting and Yoga Nidra, as well as talks on the history of yoga, the eight limbs of yoga and the Patanjali yoga sutras. When DoubleTree by Hilton voted the Lamu Yoga Festival the number one yoga festival in the world worth travelling for – the festival’s name was made.

New yoga studios, many led by AYP-trained teachers, are emerging in Nairobi and around Kenya. Many focus on power yoga in the tradition of Baron Baptiste, the style practised at AYP. However, Kenyans are nothing if not enterprising. Should you like being upside-down or the right way up, on your mat or in the water, high in the air or deep in your mind, you’ll find a style that suits you. And the diversity of Kenya enriches any retreat: throw in a safari, ride a horse, climb a mountain or dive into the warm Indian Ocean. Whether you like the beach or the bush, wildlife or mountains, desert or lake, Kenya’s the place to give yoga a go.