Griffinshill Iyengar Yoga Retreatr

Our retreat is designed to immerse you in yoga, nutritious food, nature, beauty and a community of like-minded people.
Griffins Hill Retreat is beautifully designed (by a gifted architect) to make the most of the spectacular surroundings: the mountains of the Southern Grampians, the six acres of a landscaped and edible garden, and the birds and animals that visit us every day.
Griffins Hill provides a distraction-free escape from your day-to-day pressures. Here, you can relax and mix with others in casual comfort.
Between exquisite meals and wonderful yoga workshops, we invite you to explore the beautiful bushland walks around us and visit the delightful cafes and shops nearby.

About Frank Jesse

Frank teaches all the classes at Griffins Hill Yoga Retreat. He is among the few Iyengar teachers in Australia to attain Senior Teacher status, the highest designation awarded by the accreditation body, Iyengar Yoga Australia.
Frank has spent over 40,000 hours teaching and practising yoga for the past 27 years and has attended classes run by the founding master of Iyengar yoga, Mr BKS Iyengar, at his school in Pune, India.
Frank began yoga to recover from injuring his back while building a mud-brick house for his parents in the Yarra Valley. He immediately fell in love with the practice that held such power for health and happiness and began training as a teacher.
1995 Frank started Clifton Hill Yoga Studio, building it into the highly successful Iyengar yoga school it remains today. Many Iyengar teachers practising today learned from Frank at his Clifton Hill studio, which helped to spread Iyengar yoga across Melbourne and interstate.
In 2009, Frank moved to Dunkeld to start Griffins Hill Yoga Retreat. His dream, now realised, was to provide a complete program of yoga and delicious organic vegetarian fare, mostly homegrown, and to share the spectacular local bushland and surroundings with guests.
Frank is renowned for his warm and humorous teaching style and ability to cater to the differing needs of individual students, who range widely in age (up to 80) and experience with yoga.

A story from Frank

“Building a mud brick house changed my life. My parents purchased a bush block in the Yarra Valley in the ’70s. I was a teenager, and my brothers, sisters, Mum and Dad all set about building this massive three-story house out of mud bricks, all individually made. I didn’t realise it then, but this experience shaped my attitude toward life. Later, when I first started practising yoga, I realised that becoming a yoga teacher was the same journey. We built that house one brick at a time. I built my yoga practice one pose, one muscle at a time. I learned to love big projects–like starting Griffins Hill Yoga Retreat–and to enjoy working slowly over a long period, little by little, to create something worthwhile.”