retreat in eryri-snowdonia
Healing. Clarity. Awakening.
A three-day Dru Yoga Nidra and Pranayama Retreat
in the mountains of Snowdonia.
1 – 4 October 2026 · Snowdonia Mountain Lodge, Eryri
There is a place in you that has never been tired. Never been anxious. Never been overwhelmed. Most of us have simply never been properly introduced to it.
We rest on the surface. We sleep, we take holidays, we slow down when we can. But deeper than ordinary rest, there is a stillness most people have never been shown. Not just the absence of noise. Something awake and clear. And it changes the way you meet everything.
Yoga Nidra is the practice that takes you there. Pranayama is what prepares the ground. This retreat is three days of both, together, going all the way in.
The Retreat
What this is
An immersion in Dru Yoga Nidra and pranayama (breathwork), guided by two teachers with over 45 years of practice between them.
Whether you've completed our Yoga Nidra Teacher Training or you're arriving at this practice for the first time, the invitation is the same. Come as you are. And allow three days in the mountains to return you to yourself.
The Practice
What Yoga Nidra is
Yoga Nidra is often translated as yogic sleep. That's more accurate than most people realise, and at the same time, it barely touches what the practice actually is.
In the Dru tradition, Yoga Nidra is understood as a state of consciousness, not a technique. It points toward something that is always already here, beneath the thinking and the doing. The practice simply allows you to notice it.
The way in is through rest. Deep rest. The body settles, the nervous system quietens at a level ordinary sleep rarely reaches, and old patterns begin to loosen. The mind gets quiet enough for something beyond it to shine through. But rest is the doorway, not the destination.
This is what the retreat is built around. Three days given over to that practice, with the space and guidance to let it take you as deep as you're ready to go.
Three Days
The retreat experience
Each day moves through three dimensions of the Dru Yoga Nidra approach:
Healing
Releasing the accumulated tension of a life lived at pace. Physical tension, emotional tension, the energetic kind you can't quite name. The practice gives your body the space to do what it already knows how to do.
Clarity
When the noise of daily life is genuinely set down, the mind begins to clear. Decisions that felt complicated become obvious. Priorities rearrange themselves. Through the natural settling that happens in the Yoga Nidra state.
Awakening
The deepest layer of the practice. What the tradition has always pointed toward: recognising the awareness that sits beneath thought and feeling. Not as an idea, but as something you can rest in directly. This is what sustained Yoga Nidra practice reveals.
Woven through the days is pranayama — the breath practices that are Yoga Nidra's natural companion. When the breath settles, the nervous system follows. When the nervous system settles, the mind can clear and let go. The programme also includes gentle movement, guided reflection, and time in the Snowdonia landscape. Meals are vegetarian, freshly prepared, and shared together.
Snowdonia, North Wales
The setting
Snowdonia Mountain Lodge, Eryri, North Wales.
Eryri, the Welsh name for Snowdonia, means "place of eagles." The Nant Ffrancon valley sits in the heart of it: a glacial valley shaped over millennia, surrounded by the ancient ridges of the Glyderau.
This landscape doesn't ask anything of you. It's ancient. Quiet in a way that gets into you before you've thought anything at all.
The lodge is a sustainable community retreat venue. Vegetarian meals, warm communal spaces, comfortable rooms, and mountains at every window. A place that holds real silence.
Is this for you?
Who this retreat is for
You're doing fine. But you know there's a quality of rest you're not reaching. Holidays help, sleep helps, but something deeper remains untouched. Yoga Nidra takes you past ordinary rest into a space where the nervous system can genuinely settle — and where clarity and healing happen on their own.
You know the value of stillness but you never actually practise it. Whether you lead a team, run a business, or simply carry more than your share, you sense that something would come into focus if you could truly stop. This retreat gives you three full days to find out, with nothing to manage and nowhere to be.
You've completed the Dru Yoga Nidra Teacher Training or one of our breathwork courses and want to return to the practice as a student. No methodology. No scripting. Just the state you trained to guide others into, experienced fully from the inside.
You're a practitioner of yoga, meditation, or breathwork who has heard of Yoga Nidra but never fully immersed in it. This retreat is your chance to go all the way in.
You've had moments where everything went quiet and something else came through. Brief, usually unbidden, but unmistakable. A clarity or presence that felt more real than your ordinary waking state. Yoga Nidra is the practice that lets you return there deliberately.
Your Teachers
Your guides
André Hartwich
André has been practising and teaching Yoga Nidra since 1999. It's the centre of his work, alongside pranayama and meditation, and he is a teacher trainer in all three. He's also spent years coaching leaders and teams in high-pressure professional settings — the question that drives all of it is the same: how do people stay steady, clear, and deliberate when life gets demanding? His years of practice are where he found the answer, and sharing that with others is what he cares about most.
There is a calm about André that people feel immediately. It puts them at ease, even when the practice is unfamiliar. He makes complex things simple, explains in a way that lands the first time, and brings an obvious warmth to everything he teaches. Again and again, people describe the same thing after his sessions: a stillness they didn't know was available to them. That comes from 25 years of unbroken practice.
Silke Zanker
Ayurveda, and personal development. She has spent over 20 years working with people going through real change, and it shows in the way she holds a room. There is a quality of safety in her teaching that lets people go to places they wouldn't normally go.
She doesn't push. She doesn't rush. People describe working with Silke as quietly healing — the kind of experience where something shifts and you can't quite explain how, only that it did. She understands what you carry into the room, and she knows how to hold it.
Together, they create a space that is steady, unhurried, and safe. Students who have worked with both describe the same thing: a quality of care and attention that you feel from the moment you walk in.
Everything provided
What's included
No prior experience needed. Just a willingness to go deeper than you're used to.
Gain 12 CPD Points
Investment
Pricing
Early bird pricing ends midnight, 31 May 2026
Single ensuite
Early bird
Standard
Shared twin / double ensuite
£635
£720
Single ensuite
£770
£855
All prices include tuition, accommodation, and all meals.
Early bird shared
£635
Shared twin / double ensuite
Early bird single
£770
Single ensuite
Three Days
The retreat experience
Each day moves through three dimensions of the Dru Yoga Nidra approach:
dates
1 – 4 October 2026
Location
Snowdonia Mountain Lodge, Nant Ffrancon Valley, Bethesda, Gwynedd, North Wales
Group size
Limited to 28 participants
Arrival
1 October (details sent on booking)
Departure
4 October
Limited to 28 places
Reserve your place
Early bird pricing ends 31 May 2026.
Questions? Write to us at [email protected]
