Guest Spotlight

Randall Buskirk

We have the coolest guests! An adventure isn’t just about the itinerary–it’s also about who you share it with. We want to turn the spotlight on some of our guests and what projects they’re working on.

When is a guest more than a guest? When they’re our very first RetreaTours yoga teacher!

Randall Buskirk was there at the very beginning of it all. Waaaaay back when in 2012, before BJ and I moved out of the U.S., we had the idea to create yoga retreats around the world that supported guests to enjoy the benefits of a retreat while still exploring and experiencing the local culture. (“RetreaTours” is making a little more sense now, isn’t it?)

We wanted to partner with yoga teachers that we knew and respected and, in turn, they could offer this opportunity to their students. However, it didn’t escape me that this all sounded a bit like a pyramid scheme: “You tell 6 of your friends and then they tell 6 of their friends…”

When we approached Randall, Renaissance-man-about-town in Sarasota, Florida, he understood the potential instantly. To his credit, he didn’t think that we were running the shadiest MLM scheme of all time. Instead, Randall shared our appreciation that a personal connection was extremely important when it came to something as valuable as travel and impactful as retreat.

Randall and Kai, who is [checks Randall’s notes], “the best dog ever.”

In spring 2014, Randall led our inaugural yoga RetreaTour in Bali and Lombok, Indonesia. He returned to Indonesia for another yoga RetreaTour in 2015 with Anthony Bogart and again in 2017.

I am thrilled that Randall is offering so many online options for his classes over at YogaModerns.com. He is truly one of the most insightful, gentle, talented people I’ve had the good fortune to spend time with.

Luckily for all of us not in Sarasota, he has a wide selection of classes and wise words available online at his website YogaModerns.com.

Here’s a photo of BJ, Randall, and me in Bali from 2014–oh my, I feel like that was about 85 years ago!

Apparently this is a photo of a bunch of wee babes, because that is all I see here.

Tell us a bit about the projects you’ve been working on.

The biggest project I’ve been working on is an integration of everything I have learned and continue to learn about living a good life and a long life. That’s all!

Right now that takes the form of Yoga for Moderns, which is what I call the web platform that brings together not only the simple and enduring aspects of yoga traditions, but also what I’ve learned through studying movement and performance from a modern brain-based perspective. That also fundamentally includes working with all of the emotions as our deepest sources of information, motivation, and guidance concerning ourselves and our world.

The goal is not to live a stress-free life, but through better understanding the power of stress, lead a more meaningful and richer life. And hopefully a life with an increased health span as well as an increased lifespan, with an appropriate bit of luck.

I hope to bring these offerings to in-person workshops and retreats again soon.

Please see the video below that Randall filmed in front of Stonehenge!

A Practice for Time Travelers
Use this practice or any parts of it to refresh your senses and ground yourself, whether you are traveling across time zones or through the centuries. Modify it to suit your needs throughout your journey. (Source)

How does travel inspire you?

I love to travel. It helps me to see and experience what I’ve only imagined. More importantly, it helps me to see and experience what I couldn’t have imagined and to expand into a larger world of new ideas and interconnections.

Do you have any favorite “travel gear” or things you won’t travel without?

Well, my first answer is a book. Any book that serves as a form of grounding, security, refuge, entertainment, and possibly insight. But probably the main thing I always try to travel with is a sense of trust of myself and my own instincts, and a feeling that there are people here to help me along the way.

Do you have a favorite memory to share from your travels with us?

I think my favorite memory might actually be of the period before our first trip together, when we were talking about doing a yoga retreat in Bali, sitting at a Starbucks in downtown Sarasota. It wasn’t something I had ever considered, and your presentation of the possibility and the ways to make it a reality–it was a transformational event for me, and one I’ll forever be grateful to you both for making happen. And then to arrive in Bali that first evening and sit down for dinner by the water. It was truly magical.