(written Tues. June 3rd)
Friends,
From the sunny and very ‘balanced’ isle of Ibiza, I send my greetings. I arrived on the island on Saturday after 2 great days in Barcelona and the plane was full of partiers preparing for opening weekend of the big clubs here. I was met by Brigitte who organizes the retreat on the island for me here and left the madness for a quiet and peaceful spot on the South West side of the island. Turns out that over the last 2 weeks, my retreat sold-out and she needed me to stay in a hotel about 10 minutes from the house / retreat center. This was definately a bummer for me as I’m not so fond of hotel rooms for my travels (I much prefer people’s homes!) and also I would be away from the students and the practice space. We got the room and I was in a constant practice of releasing expectations for the room I had last year on the retreat, which was amazing! I’m still not all the way ‘over it’ yet because I must drive at 5:45 in the morning to the retreat center in order to have my practice time before teaching….and take the car home at night as well. But alas, the retreat itself is going great.

These Ibiza retreats are organized from Holland and of the 20 students here, 16 are Dutch (3 Americans and 1 Belgian are the others). Fortunately, I love the Dutch! I find them to be very open and fun people…and they all speak English very well. For the first night introduction, I worked on learning their names which are very hard to pronounce and was also surprised to hear that 3 of the group were brand new to Yoga and the average practice time was about 1-2 years off and on. As a teacher, this is like a sculpter getting a fresh ball of clay and for the last 3 days, I have found an excellent rythm teaching them the Earth, Water and Fire practices of our week of Yoga as Nature morning practices and afternoon experiences. When I asked the group for the final round of introductions what they would like to ‘get’ from the week….the most common responses were ‘feelings and flexbility of Body and Mind!’ Wow! It has been great and I feel very solid in my teaching and message of Yoga as a transformational practice of body, mind, and spirit. I am pushing them in the practice and they are all stepping up to the call. This afternoon…for ‘fire’ day, I had the Inversion Immersion and of those that chose to come (about 12 of the group), everyone got up in handstand, headstand and shoulderstand….many for the first time in their adult lives! This was really powerful and they were SUPER lit up afterwards….Oh, I guess I should mention the average age of the participants here is about 40. Much higher then I am used to, but excellent as students.

(Written Monday June 9th)

So…the retreat completed on Saturday morning. I haven’t written or posted anything in the meantime because it was very powerful. Every student on the retreat had some type of personal growth and many of them had multiple breakthroughs. The nature of a retreat allows for people to really open up to the practice and lifestyle of Yoga there is a blossoming that occurs with consistent practice, healthy and delicious prepared meals and a group bonding. I feel totally satisfied from the retreat and am ready to take this inspiration to Holland to start the tour.

As usual….the new photos are up on my Photos page!  Go see Ibiza!!

One think I have been noticing within myself (which I’m sure is quite obvious to those of you who know me) is my attachment to things being a certain way (OK…that’s the nice was of saying I am a control freak!). This showed up in my teaching as I had invited a friend to help with the retreat and I was not emotionally prepared to let go of any teaching responsabilities. I have many defenses in my own mind, namely that it was my retreat and I invited her to support, but it was pretty obvious to me that I wanted to be the center of the yogic activity. If you read any of my Brazil blog posts, I have known about my propensity to place myself as ‘the star’ and how that serves my desire to be recognized as special and it was even more obvious when brought together with someone else. And….to my defense, it was my retreat and I feel that when I do create a retreat / event with other people, I am more then willing and ready to share the spotlight. In fact, I will do this in a few more weeks with the Italy retreat with Hasita. So…onwards I go traveling alone which allows me to do things as only I want them! Which I feel is the right thing with a full tour schedule over the coming weeks. I need to take care of myself with my practice, my eating and social habits….and all the while keep feeding my heart with the relationships I create with friends of all flavors.

OK….landing in Amsterdam. MacBook goes off and Welcome to The Netherlands!

I will be in Holland for the month of June (with a quick weekend in Paris!) and am very excited. Yoga is taking off here and being part of the growth is an honor. Plus, the European Championship Football (Soccer) tournament started and Holland won 3 - 0 yesterday against the Italians! Hup Holland!