17 December 2007

Persistence

If you're not ready to climb a mountain, then see if you can walk up a gentle hill.
If you're not ready to walk up a hill, then set out to take a leisurely stroll.
If you're not able to walk that far, then you can take a single step.
After taking that step you'll likely find that you're ready to take another.


If you have trouble imagining yourself reaching your goal, then imagine yourself taking one small, simple action in the direction of that goal. Imagine it, and then do it.

After that first step, there will be another one you can take, something that's a little bit more challenging and yet not overwhelming. Keep it up, and soon the ultimate goal begins to come into view.

Anything can be accomplished if you are willing to keep taking the next step when it is time to do so. What you lack in brute strength, or resources, or knowledge, or skills, you can make up for with persistence.

You absolutely can get where you choose to go, step after step after persistent step. And now is the perfect time to begin.

15 December 2007

Happy pumper

Well it has been a while, but that's just because I was busy. As always of course, but also because of something special. What? Well when I got back from New Zealand I received a letter from Les Mills in The Netherlands with the news I was invited to an audition day to become a trainee and hopefully after that become a trainer. I had to choose one program, which I found hard but I decided to go for BA. I was also thinking about BP because I love that to. I was a hard decision, but BA won at that time when I had to send in the tape. The audition day was yesterday in Leusden. Man, I was nervous. When I got out of the my hard rate was the same as after a BA track 9. Out of all teh tapes only 9 people were invited to come to the audition.
What did we have to do?
Give a 5-10 minute presentation about ourselves, our motivation and whta our addition to the would be. Then we had to present to different tracks from the program we wanted to audition for. And last but not least we had to do a workshop presentation from about 10 minutes, for which we had 30 minutes to prepare.
We had to pretend the other people were the new instructors and we had to give the presentations for them, while Brigitte (Head trainer) and Arthur (trainer) were obeserving us and taking notes. We had to participate during all the other track presentations. So, we had to to a lot of programs (all except BV, as nobody was doing audition for that). We were also observed in how we participated in the classes.
I wasn't to happy with my personal presentation. I was almost last and you hear so many stories and with the nerves running through my whole body I found it hard to stick to my prepared story. After that I started to feel a bit more comfortable and my BA presentation felt pretty good. During my preparation I was a bit worried about presenting a workshop, as I do not ahve a lot of experience in giving presentation. I usually talk easily, but you have to stick to the point and man, I find that hard. I had to prepare a workshop about the key element connecting. That was a relief. I knew I could do that and after my presentation I knew I gave the best I could. And if that wasn't enough, well then I would be disappointed, but I had a great learning experience which would help me to grow again in teaching and also in other stuff.
After we all gave our workshop presentation we had to go downstairs and after a while Arthur came down to get the first person. From that moment on, everbody started to get nervous again. Shall I make it or not? Few came down very disappointed, which I can really, really, really imagine and I was one of the others: being very happy!! I did not make it for BA, but they wanted me to go for BP trainee as I probably did do very well in the BP, while I did the class!!!! Cool!!! 5 of us made it to Traineeship (1 BC, 1 BB, 1 BJ, 1 BS and 1 BP). It will all start in January. I just can't wait!! I have been assisting a couple of module trainings, but now the real thing will start. Í just can't tell how excited I am. I know it will be tough, but I want to give all I have. I know there will be ups and downs, but the downs will make you stronger so you get up again. I;m going to go for it!!!!