Sanctum, founded by Luuk Melisse and Gabriel Olszewski, was created to connect high-intensity workouts with expression and mindfulness. The team travels the world conducting retreats and Sanctum classes, featured in Vogue and a BBC documentary for its uniqueness, Sanctum has come to the UAE.
The Sanctum Awakening Retreat is set to take place in Abu Dhabi from March 30 to April 2. Located at the Qasr Al Sarab resort, the retreat spans over three days and costs AED11,500 per person.
What to expect
- Daily Sanctum classes with founder Luuk Melisse
- 3-night accommodation at the Qasr Al Sarab
- Sanctum hike and mindfulness walks in the desert
- Live sound therapy concert
- Desert dinner x Fire ceremony
- 60min Desert Fusion massage with sound healing
- Nutritious gourmet meals throughout the retreat
- Energy centres healing workshop
“We travelled the world exploring and studying eastern movement and mindfulness practices, as well as cutting-edge fitness concepts from LA or NYC. We collected all these powerful disciplines and blended uniquely into an unmatched Sanctum sequence,” said Luuk Melisse.
A Sanctum session is a 50-minute sequence that involves ‘holistic movement’, the participant can expect to shift between modern fitness, HIIT, breath work, meditation, functional movement and more while listening to a shift between high tempo and meditation tracks on noise cancelling headphones.
Each participant is guided and encouraged to perform the sequence in a way that suits them, conducted as a group session heightening individual experiences. Each session is created with carefully curated music.
The concept started as Instagram workouts from the founders’ living room in Amsterdam during beginning of the pandemic. A couple of months later Vogue magazine identified Sanctum as one of the top 5 fitness trends in 2021. “At that point of time we know we were up for something revolutionary and groundbreaking,” said Olszewski, co-founder.
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