Our Story
Yogando Retreats founder and healthy hedonist, Elisa Magni, is a native Italian yoga teacher, RYT200, based in Detroit, Michigan. Her international background and her ability to adapt anywhere, identify her as a citizen of the world. This signature is reflected in her yoga practice, a combination of Mediterranean healthy lifestyle and joyful yoga. Throughout the year, she leads several detox classes adapted to people’s needs, whether it is plant based, or Mediterranean, or simply teaching a mindful way of dealing with food.
Her yoga story began in 2014 when she lost her program manager’s job as a result of a men’s eccentric working environment. This experience hurt her tremendously. She felt at loss, in a foreign country, with little to none self-esteem and no vision of what the future will reserve to her. It is when she touched the bottom of despair and loss, that she accidentally stumbled into the YTT ad, at her local fitness center. Her family fully supported her and she embarked in this journey with no expectations but one hope, to find similar hearts. Actually, she found way more than that. She found herself stronger, more compassionate and ready to forgive, more fierce full and capable to envision her longtime dream. Being on the yoga mat wasn’t always easy. Most nights, tears would melt with laughers, but “you cannot get to courage without walking through vulnerability”. In order to grow and learn, we must move through discomfort with grace. This is a concept widely experienced on your mat, in the yoga and in the meditation. Yoga helped her experiencing the discomfort, facing it and embracing it. Yoga pushed her looking back and accepting her loss as a blessing, as it woke her up to start to re evaluate her life and think about what she really wanted to do. Yoga helped her think outside of the box, it gave her the courage of daring greatly and thinking big. Yogando Retreats is the realization of her longtime dream. She has had a dream since her first travel as a backpacker, and this dream was to help people experience the world in an unique way, and yoga is the unique way that will let people live paramount experiences.
Today is the present and that’s why it is a gift. If you have a dream that you have been harboring for a while but have been too scared to pursue, I encourage you commit today to making that happen. We are all on earth on borrowed time, travel the world and make your life paramount!