Though Meryl Pritchard might be traveling to Costa Rica this summer for a week filled with dancing, it’s won’t be some breezy Central American jaunt.
Pritchard, 29, who founded Lincoln Heights-based organic cleanse and meal delivery service Kore Kitchen, will spend six to seven hours a day doing a therapeutic dance technique called 5Rhythms.
Hosted by a 5Rhythms teacher at a wellness spa in Nosara, the group will gather on an open-air dance floor under a thatched roof and spend two to three hours at a time moving to a variety of music. While the retreat sounds like a lark, the idea is to let down one’s guard and work through any emotional issues present in the dancers’ lives.
“It’s definitely like a dance party, but people are not there to party,” said Pritchard, who’s attended these retreats for the past three years. “People are there to work on themselves.”
She said instructors act as hosts, curating the play list and encouraging dancers with inspirational thoughts or dancing alongside them if the participants get stuck. Songs can run the gamut from meditation music to raucous rock, and dancers move however they want.
Pritchard said her best friend, Sophia Boedecker, spends several months a year in Nosara and sort of tricked Pritchard into her first 5Rhythms experience three years ago.
“She invited me to Costa Rica and told me it was a yoga retreat,” said Pritchard, who showed up with her Lululemon clothing and yoga mat. “I’m lucky she introduced me to it.”
Getting on Tracks
For attorney Sabina Helton, 51, running races has become a way to see the country. Five years ago, she decided to run a race in two states a year. She has now visited 14 states, as far-flung as Florida, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.
With her day job as a litigator at the downtown L.A. office of law firm Buchalter Nemer, focusing on product liability and commercial litigation, running became a way to take a break while traveling around the country.
“My vacation time is so limited with the career I have, so it was a nice way to do two things at once, see a city and get in my passion of running,” said Helton, who recently became president of the Japanese American Bar Association.
During a recent marathon in Colorado, she ran up and down mountains and through fields covered with wildflowers. It’s just the reason she prefers running to road trips.
“When you’re driving, it’s different than when you’re running,” she said. “You can see the places in a whole different way.”
Staff reporters Marni Usheroff and Olga Grigoryants contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Jonathan Diamond. He can be reached at [email protected].
