When we ran our first retreat in 2014, there were nine of us in a borrowed lodge outside Braemar. I taught every session, cooked half the meals and drove the minibus. It was chaotic and wonderful, and it taught me something I’ve spent twelve years trying to protect: a retreat works when everyone in the room can be seen.
People often ask why we don’t simply run bigger groups. The venues could take more. Demand, for some weeks, would support it. The answer is partly philosophical, but mostly practical — and it comes down to a few numbers.
The teaching arithmetic
In a ninety-minute class, a teacher realistically has time for meaningful individual attention — not a passing cue, but watching someone move, asking a question, offering a variation — perhaps once every five or six minutes. Across a session, that’s fifteen or sixteen genuine interactions.
With sixteen guests, everyone receives that attention at least once in every class. With twenty-four, a third of the room goes without. Over a week of fourteen sessions, that difference compounds into two completely different experiences of the same retreat.
“Sixteen is the largest number that still fits around one table. That turns out to matter more than almost anything else.”
One table
There is a second number, less scientific but just as important. Sixteen people, plus two teachers, is roughly the most that can share one long table and still hear each other. When a group splits across tables, it splits socially as well. Cliques form; quieter guests drift to the edges.
We’ve tested this. In 2018 we ran two Algarve weeks at twenty-two guests. The feedback on teaching was strong, but the scores for “felt part of the group” dropped by almost a third. We went back to sixteen the following season and haven’t moved since.
What it means for venues
Smaller groups narrow our choice of venues in ways that guests rarely see. We need places that are intimate enough not to feel empty with sixteen people, but with a practice room large enough to give everyone two metres of space. Those buildings are rare, and we tend to stay loyal to them once we find them.
- A practice room of at least 80 m², with natural light and a floor that can be heated
- A kitchen willing to cook for a set group, from a menu we develop together
- Walking or water access straight from the door, so the landscape is part of every day
The exceptions
Our teacher trainings run at up to twenty-two, with four faculty in the room. The ratio is better than any retreat, but the format is different: trainees are learning to observe each other, and a slightly larger cohort gives them more bodies to learn from.
Mountain programmes go the other way. The Alta Via hut-to-hut week is limited to ten, because that is what a single mountain guide can safely lead on exposed ground — and what a rifugio can reasonably accommodate on a July evening.
Why it’s worth it
Capping groups makes our programmes harder to run and keeps the calendar small. But every year, the comment that comes up most often in feedback isn’t about the scenery or the food. It’s some version of: I felt like the teachers actually knew me by the end of the week. That’s the whole point.
