PUGLIA IS COMING SOON!

We’re new to leading retreats, but not to teaching Yoga and planning meaningful events. 

Kim has been teaching Yoga consistently since early 2007. In the 17 years since leading her first class, she has only taken leave from teaching Yoga during her two postpartum periods. Kim has participated in extensive formal and self-led studies in the domains of anatomy and physiology, asana, philosophy, meditation, and therapeutic applications of yoga. Kim has co-owned and operated The Glowing Body since 2017, designed and facilitated 4 year-long, 200 hour yoga teacher trainings. Kim has been a licensed massage therapist in practice since 2019, specializing in Thai yoga massage. Kim is pursuing advanced therapeutic Yoga training, as well as completing modules in myofascial release and breath techniques for nervous system regulation and stress management. 

Amalia has been practicing Yoga for more then 20 years, enjoying different styles of Yoga. She fell in love with this beautiful practice and wanted to learn more about it. Her curiosity brought her to New York to attend a 200h YTT with Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman at Yoga Shanti. She learnt the basics of Sanskrit, manual adjustments, and found the inspiration and structure for her yoga teaching. She felt like a big part of her training was missing, so after a few months, she flew to Mysore, India, to attend a 300 hour training with a big focus on Pranayama and Meditation. Though Amalia was originally unsure if she was going to teach, she finally put her training and experience to use in 2022 at her favorite studio in Knoxville, The Glowing Body. Learning never ends and right now she is doing a Restorative Yoga training.

From a former life as a fashion buyer, to reinventing herself as a private chef upon moving to Knoxville, Amalia can't help be be a tastemaker. In addition to teaching yoga, she has created a thriving food business, Ama.Mi.Kitchen, acting as a consultant in menu development, leading cooking classes, crafting dinners for private clients and their special events, as well as being the culinary genius behind the popular L'Ost Dinners (guess what region will be next?!?).

We are not naive travelers. 

Amalia started traveling with her parents at a very young age, visiting most of Europe, a couple of states in South America, North America, and Asia, and has never lost her passion for travel as an adult. At 16 she went to study in the UK, and at 21 she moved to San Diego for a few months. In the ultimate adventure, Amalia relocated from her home country of Italy to the United States in 2019, but she spends a few months per year in Italy where her roots, family, and oldest friends are. Traveling is a shared interest for her and her husband, Jace, with whom she keeps exploring the world (now with their toddler in tow!) 

Kim has traveled internationally to Costa Rica, Mexico, the Bahamas, and three times to Haiti, as well as extensively within the United States. This will be her first excursion across the Atlantic - meaning it will be easy for her to harness the same inspiration and wonder that our participants may experience during their travel. 

We are not great salespeople. 

As one could guess, the skills that make a great yoga teacher do not often overlap well with effective sales techniques. We love to share experiential knowledge with people on an intimate level, but we do not love aggressively pursuing students or touting our work as a panacea. It is hard for us to make sales pitches in an era of rampant consumerism and perpetual overstimulation. It’s not easy, as conscientious entrepreneurs, to add to the noise that we often find to be antithetical to the core of grounded yoga practice. 

Alas, in order for us to do what we do, people must know about it. Even if you have decided this retreat isn’t for you - will you help us? Will you share it with one friend who may benefit? 

 

This is shaping up to be an intimate retreat. 

We are mothers to young children, run multiple businesses, and maintain busy schedules, and the truth is, we were slow to finalize details (though we’ve been discussing our retreat for more than a year!) 

The result: a slow rollout for us means this will likely be our most intimate retreat EVER. We expect this year’s retreat to be extremely personalized - offering significant value to anyone who takes the leap to join us in 2024! 

Plans are already in the works for 2025 (so if you can’t make this year’s trip, don’t fret!) but we will release the details for that trip far earlier, leaving more time for more people to join us. 

TLDR: We are hoping for 5 more participants.

You can help us to realize that goal! Please pass this along to someone you know who may be interested.

Or if you yourself have been feeling the call and waiting for the right nudge, email presence.practice.puglia@gmail.com and we will share a special offer to help get you over the hump in committing. 

If you would like to get to know us or ask more questions, please join us for an in person meet and greet:

The Glowing Body

711 Irwin Street

Sunday, April 14th

11am-12pm

We will offer some light Italian-inspired refreshments!

Maybe some focaccia?!?

Retreat Info