Mongolia Yoga Tour – Interview With Yoga Teacher Cryn Horn
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Last updated 3 years ago by Jessica Brooks | Published: December 8, 2021
Mongolia Yoga Tour – Interview With Yoga Teacher Cryn Horn
Established yoga teacher Cryn Horn is the host of our Mongolia yoga tour. Cryn travelled to Mongolia as a guest of EL prior to the Covid pandemic where she fell in love with the country. Cryn then reached out to us about working in partnership to create a Mongolia yoga tour and her genuine love for Mongolia was just one reason why we teamed up with her to offer our ‘Find Yourself In Mongolia’ yoga experience.
In the words of Cryn
‘… there is a spaciousness of time and place in Mongolia which allows you to sink deep into the more restorative and meditative aspects of yoga, at one with nature.’
‘… the immensity of the land and sky and the skills and friendliness of the people who are so at home in what to me was an alien landscape. It invited me to be me. I can’t wait to return.’
‘Everyone is so friendly and welcoming and I admire their skills and resourcefulness. The ethos of the company fits with mine, especially with regards to empowering women and clearing litter.’
Cryn leads her classes from the heart in an intuitive way. She uses her broad palette of experience to tailor each class to whoever is in it, how they are on that day, and the location. This openness and flexibility work perfectly in Mongolia’s calming landscapes leading to rest, rejuvenation, and reflection.
Our Mongolia yoga tour focuses on two locations in Mongolia’s Central Heartland – the Khogno Khan Nature Reserve with the Elsen Tasarkhai Sand Dunes and the Orkhon River Valley. We asked Cryn what impacted her most about the landscapes at both locations.
- Khogno Khan – ‘The huge vista of the sheltered valley opening out and out and out from the ruined monastery.’
- The Orkhon River Valley – ‘The beauty of it all including the secluded valleys.’
Khogno Khan Nature Reserve Mongolia. Image: EL guest Mick Egan
As a social travel enterprise, we’re driven by a set of ethics and values including making a difference through tourism that doesn’t harm the liveability of Mongolia. Every experience we research, design, and offer helps to create long-term employment opportunities and provide long-term support to a range of Mongolian people and families as well as projects that focus on improving life in Mongolia. As part of our philosophy, we form long-term local community partnerships with rural families that are looking to diversify their income through tourism. Two of the families we work in such partnership with are the Davaasuren and Tumee families who are our hosts at Khogno Khan and Orkhon Valley respectively on our yoga experience. We asked Cryn what she gained from meeting and staying with the Davaasuren and Tumee families:
- Khogno Khan – ‘Davaasuren of course had his camels, and that was a fantastic experience. The trip to the sand dunes was surreal and Davaasuren’s artistic skills in the sand were a real high point for me.’
- The Orkhon River Valley – ‘I absolutely loved being at the Tumee place, with the livestock wandering around until driven to fresh pastures each day. Jagaa let me work on embroidering a felt mat which apparently was for the floor. Such hard work, and even though I’ve sewn all my life, my skill set was not enough to do it anywhere near as neatly as she did.’
The home of Tumee. Image: EL guest Annelies Quaegebeur. Cryn visited in early spring – the season of new life and mentioned that never before had she shared her bedroom with a kitchen, the family sink, the main water supply in a barrel, and a lamb! All in a day’s experience in Mongolia!
Our ‘Find Yourself In Mongolia’ yoga experience, caters to all from total beginners to those with an established practice. It is therapeutic, restorative, and contains Yoga Nidra. We asked Cryn why she thinks Yoga Nidra works so well in Mongolia’s landscapes:
- ‘One of the points of Yoga Nidra (and yoga in general) is to be at one with your surroundings. Coming from an industrial, overly tech-oriented society we are bombarded with information and so it can be hard to navigate through the sensory overload this produces. The spaciousness of Mongolia, and the unspoiled nature, lend themselves to the practice – and make it easier to then continue the practice back home.’
As part of our Mongolia yoga tour, we provide our own felt yoga mats – hand-made in Mongolia. We asked Cryn how she came up with the idea of the yoga mat made in Mongolia.
- ‘The way I teach yoga is to be gentle with the body, and commercial mats tend to be an unpleasant texture and not very comfortable. When I saw the mat Jagaa (Orkhon River Valley) was making it clicked that something like that would make practicing yoga in Mongolia really special.’
For 2023 we will not be running our yoga experience. However, take a look at the other range of experiences we offer – https://www.eternal-landscapes.co.uk/mongolia-tours/
