Holistic Holiday by Maxine Jones

It's hard to talk about Atsitsa without putting people off. Phrases like 'finding yourself', 'releasing your full potential', 'letting go' bubble irritatingly to the surface.

'Anything is possible and I am open to it. Repeat,' says Sharon the Texan course director as we sit in the 'magic circle' on the first morning. My lips remain firmly shut. She tells us to look for heart-shaped stones during our stay.

Fifty-one participants and ten staff sit under the rushes that cover the open-sided circle. Chickens and hens cluck nearby and the cicadas start up their relentless refrain. Below, the clear blue-green Aegean laps lazily, overlooked by the old stone house which is Atsitsa's main building. Those who don't sleep in the house, up to five to a room, share tiny two-bedded bamboo huts. Conditions are basic and perfect for such a climate and setting.

On this side of the Greek island of Skyros, nine miles from Skyros town, among hills and pine forests, only the occasional taverna competes for space with the goats. There is one card phone, recently granted, under a tree on the way to the well. Skyrian ponies in the field opposite provide a whinnying accompaniment to calls home.

We arrived the day before, after a day-long journey from Athens - coach, ferry, coach, ferry, coach. We are predominantly London professionals. Ten are from Ireland, half a dozen from the north of England. All booked individually apart from one married couple, two pairs of friends, and two mothers with daughters. For the most part we are strangers sharing rooms. With a couple of exceptions either side, the age range is 25 to 50. Women outnumber men five to one. Over the next two weeks we will form a community - living, working, confiding, playing together.

The chemistry of each session at Atitsa is different, dictated as much by the mix of teachers and workers as by the participants. Bongo-drumming Shannon, the handsome and gifted music teacher, provided the score for this session, practising on the rocks overlooking the sea until locals complained.

Jae, the equally charismatic sailing instructor (also an expert at Tai Chi with sword), stamped his mark on the session by shaving the heads of the male participants to match his own. Jae joined the percussion sessions on the drum he brought on his motorbike from England. When it snapped in the heat wave he fixed it with a fresh goat skin, hung out of sight to dry.

On the first morning it is impossible to imagine the conventional male participants wanting their heads shaved. Around the magic circle we say our names, making assumptions about each other which will mostly be overturned by the end of the fortnight. We choose work groups: setting the breakfast tables, chopping vegetables, sweeping. Then we divide randomly into Oekos groups, a daily forum where everyone gets the chance to talk uninterrupted for a couple of minutes. The other members do not comment, nor do they repeat what has been said outside the group.

Co-listening couples are arranged for those who want them. Here, one person talks and the other, without judging or commenting, repeats what they've understood. Again, each is bound by confidentiality. With three courses a day where we join in further groups, it is impossible not to get to know people.

None of the activities, says Sharon, is compulsory. I breathe a sigh of relief. I am here for the sun, the sea, the healthy food, the yoga, the watercolour, the windsurfing. Maybe I'll have a go at Middle Eastern Dance or water shiatsu. Each teacher tells a little about his or her course. Outdoor adventure is offered by Mungo, an engaging Scotsman, who sometimes speaks of the 'compound' then corrects it to 'community'. He offers abseils into the sea, walks into the dark labyrinth of a bat cave knee deep in bat excrement, scrambles up dried river beds, a trek across the island to Skyros town.

His 'compound' scepticism is misleading. In the second week Mungo, barefooted and with his full locks shaved by Jae, takes us on a meditative walk at 7am. He teaches us to slow down. One step barefoot, aware and carefully noticing, is worth a hundred-mile dash down the motorway. He teaches us to stop at the side of the road. Between tasks when you get home, try stopping, he says. When you park outside the supermarket stop for a while before you rush inside. We continue walking in silence like monks. A car comes up behind us. We part gently like a wave. On a walk to a taverna in the first week we'd hopped around every time a car appeared shouting, 'Out of the way, quick, quick, a car, a car.'

My usual 7am session was yoga with the gentle, graceful Anastasia - a wonderful way to start each day, looking out to sea as the sun rose. Next came breakfast, (fresh fruit, greek yoghurt, warm bread, honey) and 'demos' which is a bit like school assembly. Then a swim in the sea and a lounge around until the watercolour class where I was transported back to double art lessons at school which I loved.

Middle Eastern music filtered down from the magic circle where Kathy, an ebullient New Yorker, talked her pupils through their erotic dance. In the break they'd come down bright-eyed and smiling to view our work. Then lunch - the food was always exceptional. Then siesta, unless you wanted to join Jae on the yacht for a siesta sail.

In the afternoon I banged drums, shook shakers and rattled tambourines to samba and African rhythms. Sometimes Shannon took us into the forest where the cicadas added another layer of accoustics. The cooking and cleaning staff, mostly young British and Antipodeans, are free to join the classes as 'work scholars'. Thanks mostly to their imput the percussion group became quite good. With Shannon leading on keyboards, it was the nearest I'd ever come to being in a rock band.

In the second week Afro-Latino dance proved too energetic in the heat and I decamped to mosaics. I became entranced, as did everybody who was working on a mosaic. We would sneak off at odd times of day or night to add more pieces. My afternoon activity was windsurfing. Bob, who taught the class, had us all up within half an hour using his tried, tested and simplified technique. An inspired poet and spoons player, Bob may one day grace the world with his work in progress - 'Confessions of a holistic windsurfing instructor.'

While I was chilling out on the beach, some tears were being shed in Exploring Family Scripts. Cathartic more than upsetting, this course had groups acting out scenarios from their family history, then rewriting the scripts to show how relationships could change.

Some Oekos groups and co-listeners also delved deep. In this safe and trusting (if temporary and contrived) environment, emotions came to the surface which work and city life suppressed. People were working things through and considering change. The Oekos group I was in disbanded after the first session but just in the general run of things - sharing meals, sweeping floors, sticking down mosaics - confidences were exchanged and friendships made.

On the last night our paintings and mosaics were exhibited and a last meeting called in the 'magic circle' where we were to bring our heart-shaped stones. I skipped this debriefing, preferring the four-and-a-half mile wooded walk to Fokus Bay and the secluded taverna there. I got talking to the family who owned it and had the authentically Skyrian experience of a pillion moped ride back along the stony track.

In the 'compound' the debriefing was over and the cabaret was starting. The Middle Eastern dancers took to the stage, the more corpulent outdoing the svelte. Then the drummers came on and the singers. We'd all come out of ourselves, relaxed and happier versions of the group that left Athens two weeks earlier. I asked what had happened with the heart-shaped stones. 'We gave them away to each other,' I was told.

Back home I slept well and woke thinking I could hear the sea. For the first week I continued with yoga in the morning. The peaceful routine of Atsista stayed with me. I felt empty and calm. Then day by day the 'magic' wore off, slipping away like the memory of a dream.