Early class this morning

Wow, I thought BA at saturday morning 9.00 am was early. Well try BC at 6.30 am. I was exhausted, but it was cool though. Real good Muy Tai track. I had never done this one and I really liked it. Afterwards I had breakfast and took the bus to the Wellington Zoo. I can tell one thing, visiting a Zoo here is quite a workout too. It's located on a hill side and just walking around gets pretty steep sometimes.
In the evening I took another BA class. This time Sue was teaching. I had a great time and she did one track op BA55. Be prepared you guys at home :-) Tonight I have to pack my bags as I'm heading up north to Auckland tomorrow. Talk to you later.

Les Mills Wellington Extreme

Just a quick update a I am exhausted. Not working out for 2 weeks and all of a sudden working out again. Pffffff... but it was great fun. This morning I did a BC class. Not too crowded but it was a great class and a nice instructor. Maybe because she is half dutch?! No kidding, it was fun and it felt great afterwards having worked out again. I also got a tour around the whole gym, which was quite big and has 4 levels and a lot of stairs to go with that :-). Studio one is also pretty big, but not as big as in Auckland. Nice work out areas and a womens only floor. Studio 2 is during the day a child care place and only used in the evening for classes. The RPM studio holds about 30-35 bikes so that's not extremely big. That number gets pretty close to our own Cycling studio.
During the day I have been walking around town, going to the cable car, wnet up the hill wwith it, went to the cable car museum (boring) and walked around the botanical gardens. Then I found my way down again and very suprisingly I saw the sun coming thru and the sky was clearing up. I sat down at a starbucks cafe for a bit and wrote my travel journal. Then I took a nice stroll along the harbor site and enjoyed the view on the water. At the end of the afternoon I went back to the gym for a BA class. It felt sooooooo good. Wow, now I realized how much I have missed my BA workouts. It's so good the give your body a rest, but I have missed it a lot, so I am happy I was able to work out. Tomorrow I am gonna do another BA class and maybe (if I am manage to wake up early) another BC class.

Koru

Coincidence or not? From the first time on when I was in New Zealand the Maori carving Koru catched my eye and somehow stayed on my mind ever since. The way the sign looks and what it means somehow did something with me.

The koru shape is a scroll shape and is linked to the New Zealand fern plant. The shoot of the fern has a curled-over tip which unfurls and becomes a fernleaf.
The koru reaches towards the light, striving for perfection, encouraging new positive beginnings... The koru, represents the unfolding of new life, that everything is reborn and continues. It represents renewal and hope for the future. Spiral, geometry of life, sacred creation...

I was just checking Les Mills' Kia Kaha and read Steve's post about the Maori signs and checked the Signs and their meanings. For those of you who didn't know ... my favourite program is BA, which is very very closely followed by BP. But check out the sign for BA and the meaning:

The outwardly spiralling koru motif depicts powerful energy being released from within. Shown this way, it also references a collision of growth and change

Wellington

This afternoon I arrived in Wellington. First I planned to stay another day in Whakapapa at the national park, but as the weather wasn't to good I decided to leave for Wellington one day earlier as beside being outdoors and walking, there's not much to do in Whakapapa. It took about 6 1/2 including all stops to get to Wellington. We had one stop in a little town where they had a dutch shop. Ofcourse I went in there to see what they where selling. There is another dutch guy on the bus and we decided to buy some haring (rolmops) at the store. I guess all the other people at the bus thought we were a kinf of weird since we were eating raw fish, but it's something typical dutch and we both liked it. They also sold 'ontbijtkoek', 'pepernoten', 'stroopwafels', 'beschuit met muisjes', 'hagelslag', 'vlokken' dutch cheeses and even dutch 'senseo' coffee. Sorry don't know the other english words for all this dutch food. After that we drove straight on to Wellington. It was again a nice drive. Upon arrival a went to explore the area for a bit and right now it's raining again so I am glad I am here writing my emails and updating my blog. Unfortunately I have to go out again to go back to the hostel. Tomorrow I think I'll be going to the Te Papa museum, which is (according to Lonely planet), THE Museum of New Zealand and something you should not miss being in Wellington. Well I guess with the weather like this it's defenitely something I going to be doing :-).

Tongariro Crossing

Wow, this one the the most amazing 1 day walks I have ever done. I guess I really lucked out with the weather, as the morning started out very cloudy and few raindrops came down. The driver of the bus checked with the weatherstation and the forecast for the rest of the day was supposed to be good. And it was!! It cleared up and doing the trek the sun came thru and we had pretty clear sights at the top. It was awesome. It started out quite flat in the beginning, but pretty soon we came to the 'Devils Staircase'. I can understand why they call it like that. It's a very steep climb up on the rocks. The reward after this first climb was gooed though, a nice view which was quite clear already and snow tops and also real snow right next to me! Then the track continued and the the sky became all blue, the sun was shining, but is was cold 'cause the wind was blowing. Another steep hill came up and the reward was even better. Only a little but further up, could it become even better? Oh yeah it sure did. At the highest point we would reach at this trek the view was magnificent. Snowy tops, 3 bright blue/green crater lakes, clear skies.... I don't know how to describe it.... This is not my picture but one found on the internet, I guess it 'll do for now...... The rest of track was also very beautyful. Passing some hot streams (water running down from the hot springs) and finally ending the track in the forest. This whole area is volcanic area. There are 3 volcanoes in the area, Mt. Ngauruhoe, Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ruapehu. All three all still active. The nameTongariro actually covered all three mountains and means Tonga (south wind) and riro (carried away). At the hostel there was a jacuzzi so it was a good ending of the day, relaxing in this hot water after this 17 km walk. Especially because it started to rain again...

Lake Taupo

At the moment I am in Taupo. Left Rotorua yesterday after a visit at a Maori Village called Te Whakarewarewa. Took me quite some time to pronounce this right, but I think I am able to do so now. It was an interesting visit and very nice to learn some more about the Maori culture. On the way to Taupo we have stopped at a hot water springs. Weird thought that when you put your hand in a river stream it appears to be very warm water. We had the possibilty to go swim in it, which I ofcourse did. We had another stop and some boiling and exploding mud, which was quite neat to see. Close to Taupo the bus stopped at the Huka Falls. Impressive to see how much water comes down these falls. They say it's anough to fill 2 Olympic size swimmingpools every second, can you imagine!
Rightnow I am sitting in an Internet place, but listening to the music I got the feeling I am in a Les Mills gym. I think I've heard about 10 BP and 4 BA tracks. Quite hard to sit still and type my travel journal that way :-) Well anyway, I am gonna go for a walk now. I hope I will not be too cold as the outside temperature isn't very warm. But at least it's not raining right now.
Later!!!

Kia Ora

Yeah, I'm back and having a great time here in New Zealand. Friday I arrived in Auckland after a pretty long trip. I was very lucky to travel business class on the flight Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur, so I had a good sleep. When I arrived in Auckland a went to the hotel and arranged the buspass. I planned to travel on Magic bus, but their schedule isn't very good at the moment due still winter times, so I switched to Stray Travel. A bit more expensive, but with a better schedule.
Saturday morning I left right away for Hahei at the Coromandel Peninsula. A beauthfull ride, which started of at Mt. Eden. Unfortunately it was so foggy, there was notjing to see up there, I could hardly see my own arm when I stretched it out in front of me. So I might have to get up there again when I'm back in Auckland. We arrived around 1.30pm in Hahei and I went of for a Kayak trip along the eastcoast. Beautyfull green/blue ocean, the sun even came out and I had a great time. Spotted a penguin and a bird divig from way up in the sky to the fish in the ocean to get his dinner. Pretty cool to see how he did that.
The next day the bus drove on to the westcoast, to Raglan, known for the surfers waves. I had never done surfing before, but I can tell you now, it's awesome. It was very difficult, but I managed to get up 5 times for at least 5 seconds. The feeling when you're up on the waves.... can't describe it. I know I'd like to do that more often :-)
This morning we first went to Waitomo, to see the glowworm caves. Pretty awesome, I'd like my bedroom ceiling to be like that. Would be neat to have these small lights. It's amazing how bright the larves shine. We also went in another cave and have been walking around the area for a bit. Unfortunately it has been raining all day. Not just a little, I was soaking wet and cold as well. Hopefully this is only for one day....At the moment I'm in Rotorua and tomorrow afternoon I'll be leaving for Taupo. Let you know later what's going on there.

One more day....

Tomorrow I will be leaving for New Zealand again. Today I still have lots of things to do, as I still have to go to work tomorrow. Not really for work but for a training, but still, no time left then, so all has to be done today. This weekend was quite busy as I did a demo at the Fitvak convention in Utrecht. We did the LM demo with 3 LM assessors. We had a lot of fun. We had to do the whole thing 3 times a day. It was a combo of BC, BA, BJ, BS and BB. It took a little less than 15 mins. We have met a lot of nice people at the convention and even though we were afraid the days would be taking forever, time flew. I think it's really true: Time flies when you're having fun!

My holiday plans are as follows: I will fly via Kuala Lumpur to Auckland, I wil stay in Auckland for 2 days and then I will be heading south for Waitomo and Rotorua, then I will be going towards Taupo, Turangi and Wellington. From Wellington I will be going up north again to Napier and Mt. Maunganui. I will also be going to Whitianga and Thames. Then I will be in Auckland for about a week. And last but not least I am going up North to Cape Reinga, Bay of Islands and Paihia. I will be leaving Auckland 13 November, to be back in time for our MEGA quarterly 18-19 November.

Start....

If you want to get something done, then start it. That may sound obvious, yet all too often it is that first step that keeps getting put off for way too long.
If you can't decide on where to start, just start somewhere, with the first thing that comes to mind. You'll be much better able to come up with an effective plan once you get going and get a feel for what you're doing.
Yes, you'll probably make some mistakes and yes, there will certainly be challenges. So get moving and get busy dealing with them right away.
Once you start, the momentum begins to build. Once you start, you'll find a workable way to finish.
Take the first step on a journey, and the next step comes a little more smoothly. As each step prepares the way for the next, your momentum begins to carry much of the load.
The way to get where you want to be is to start from where you are. Now is when you can surely begin to make your best possibilities come to life.
R. Marston

Quarterly Club Launch

Yeste4rday we had our quarterly club launch. Theme was: "Touch of Silver". At the club we have 5 LM programs. RPM, BP, BC, BA and BB. Jan 07 we will also start with BJ. For now it was just 5 x 30mins launch. We had great fun, dressing ourselves with a touch of silver. Members also showed up with a toch of silver, so it all looked very nice. I didn't do the RPM, but at 19.30 we started with BC. We did the launch with the 3 of us. Aubrey, Eline and me, all three dressed in black and silver, we showed them some combat girl power. We had a number of new faces, all doing great. It was also good to see some familiar faces back in Combat. After BC it was time for BP. I explained about the new focus and also about the wide rows in the backtrack. After PB: ATTACK time. I can't say anything else but Be There next time if you weren't there yesterday. BA54 again an awesome release. Also presenting with 3 it's a lot of fun. We could see people getting tired, put we pulled them thru! They made it to the end. After BA , it was BB time. We had a couple of people doing the whole evening. Good job you guys!! Hope to see you in class next time as well.

Work out

This morning a went to workout in Leusden. A club over there organized a workout and all funds were going to the Cancer Foundation. Since I like to work out and I also think the Cancer Foundation is a good thing to raise money for, I decided to hop into my car and drive overthree to do the workout. The presenters were our own LM national trainers, so it kind a felt like a quarterly. Unfortunately it wasn't as busy as that club had expected it to be, but I had a good time anyways and it doubles the good feeling that they were raising the money for a good cause.
I only did BP and BA, as I had to work this afternoon, but I was exhausted anyways, so doing a BP or any class wouldn't have been very efficient. I'm glad I'm healthy and able to participate in sports a lot, so if this could help other people to cure from this awfull disease, and be able to participate in life and play just any sport again, I'd be happy!

At our club we have the quarterly launch thursday, 28 September.

19.00 RPM
19.30 BODYCOMBAT
20.00 BODYPUMP
20.30 BODYATTACK
21.00 BODYBALANCE

For all programs we teach 4 or 5 tracks. The theme this time is: 'a Touch of Silver'. Hope to see ya there ...... all dressed in silver !!!

Yesterday

Yesterday evening I had a good talk with someone. At the moment I'm practising really hard to improve myself as an instructor, and I'm not easily satified with what I do when I watch the video's. Some people around me just say, why are you not satisfied, you've got pretty full classes, we get positive feedback from customers, but I still got this feeling I can do better. I know there is more in me and I want to get it out. Sometimes it's frustrating and it can make me real insecure as well. I have been through this earlier, but sometimes when you're so passionate about something and you've got something on your mind, it's so easy to fall back to previous mistakes. Haven't I learned from the past? Oh yes I have, because now I'm noticing it and before I didn't. Yesterday we talked for almost 2 hours about is. Not a lot of people are as passionate as we both are, but it's good to have someone who know's what you'd like to achieve tell you to ease down on yourself. It really helped me. This morning I was watching yesterday's class taping and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Ofcourse still things to improve, but yesterday's talk helped me to watch the tape through different eyes. There are also things I do well I found out. Thanks for letting me know R.

I found this text this morning:

• Focus on something that you do well and find a way to do it even better. The substance of value that you create is never wasted.
• Choose something that you do well and find a way to make the fruits of your efforts available to those around you. By providing real value to others, you expand the treasures in your own life.
• Take something you do well and find a way to make it enjoyable. The more you enjoy what you're doing, the more effective you'll be.
• Find something you do well and teach it to others. The more you can duplicate your efforts, the more value there is for everyone.
  Look at something you do well and consider the real, lasting sense of fulfillment it can bring. Remember that life is about making a difference.
• The things you do well provide you with the opportunity to give of yourself in real and meaningful ways. That's an opportunity you don't want to miss.

And here another one:

For the best
Something did not turn out the way you wanted. And maybe, it was for the best.
Disappointments and setbacks can have a way of becoming positive turning points. When something does not work out, it makes room for other possibilities. Be careful not to attach your sense of fulfillment too tightly to specific outcomes and circumstances. For there are far more possibilities than you have yet imagined. Sometimes you aim too high and sometimes you aim too low. When you do, the resulting disappointments can help guide you toward where you truly want to be. Whether the last few days have seen you move forward or fall back, new doors have most certainly been opened by whatever has happened. Choose now to focus on the most promising of your current options. Go with the assumption that whatever happens is for the best. And you'll find a way to make it so. Marston, R.

A day at the airport

Working at the airport is different every day. With 100.000 sometimes 150.000 travellers a day, it's quite natural you'll see and meet all sorts of people. This is the thing a love most about working at Schiphol Airport. There are people who are nice, angry, crazy, funny, smart, frightened, ugly, pretty, fat, skinny, normal, black, white, dumb, blond, old, young, colourful dressed, business men/women, people who are in a hurry, impatient. You name it and they walk around at the airport. All those people make my workdays different every time. Sometimes you already know what will come up at a certain time of the day. Usually on friday afternoons, lots of Frenchmen come up to desk trying to get on a earlier flight. Most of them have the same kind of tickets and then we are able to change their tickets. On sunday mornings it's usually the englishmen coming in. You can already smell the alcohol from the evening before. Most of the time they missed their flight and the have non changeable, non refundable tickets, which leaves them with nothing but a new ticket they have to buy. Right now we have lots of students collecting their tickets before their flights to Aruba or Netherlands Antilles, where they will be working as a part of their studies. Sometimes delays happen and then we have people stranding in Amsterdam. Most of the time we are able to help out people pretty good, but sometimes there are problems as a lot of people need a visa to enter the Netherlands or other Schengen countries and if they do not have a visa, they sometimes have to stay at the airport for 2 days and wait for the next flight. Sometimes people miss their flight because of their own mistake, then it's even a bigger problem for them as we have to stick to their ticketrules. It's also funny to see that people always tell us: "I don't have money, I am not able to pay a change fee." When we tell them no money no flight.... within an hour, they are back ... with money. I always wonder were they find it..... maybe I can go there as well :-)
Somehow people always blame us for the fact they missed their flight, or the wrong date in the ticket they booked via their travel agent. We also cause traffic jams, train delays....pretty good hey. But ofcourse there are also lots af nice people walking around, even though they might have had some pretty bad experiences. Today I had a couple at my desk and they had quite a big problem, caused in Londen yesterday. I wasn't able to turn things around for them, but tried to help them as good as possible. Later the man came back to me a thanked me for everything I had done. That makes you feel good when someone takes the time and comes back. Then you forget other less pleasant things that happen. Well this is just a part of my 'other life'. I have an early shift tomorrow, so I'm going to bed early, at least I'm going to try to go to bed early :-)

Ps. Put a smile on your face and find out how many people will smile back at you.

AIM - Advanced Intructor Module

Last weekend I went to the Les Mills AIM training in Roosendaal. It was the first AIM training here in de the Netherlands I was glad I was able to go. It's a great training for Silver certified LM instructors. It was quite intensive, because a lot of information is given. Mostly theory and a lot of talking on the first day. Lots of thinking about yourself and how you do things. We also had a few games in between to point out several things. Funny stuff that makes you think again. Second day we also worked out and had to present tracks. AIM actually is a bunch of questions which will be discussed during the training, and these questions will challenge you as an instructor in your way of teaching. Always be there for 110%, be prepared to learn and analize yourself. Focus, dedication and practise. It was great. We had a good team of trainers, which I also think is in important. They really took time to help us with all our questions and they were passionate about the training as well. Good job Else & Remi.

Yesterday evening I have been teaching BA and BP. I was exhausted. I taped my BA class and watched it yesterday evening. Really good to watch yourself and then try to improve yourself for the next time. Last thursday I taped my BP class. Next thursday, or maybe tomorrow as well I will tape BP class again, to see if I was able to fix the things I noticed on my tape. Today I did not have any classes to teach, so after work I went to gym and had my own training. I first did BC for 45 minutes as I have to teach BC again tomorrow and after that I decided to do BA. I had the video with me and taped it again. Just to watch my technique, power and energy. Even though I was tired, I could push myself to go deeper, higher and be stronger. Next time I have to do that in class. I feels good to be working out this way again. Just like the old days with swimming. Practise, watch, improve and keep on doing that. There are always small things you can improve.

Another year older

Yesterday was my B-day. Another year older again. I didn't have a big party as I am quite busy at the moment with teaching, courses, work and other fun things. I had my mom and dad over for dinner and my 2 best friends and later on a few more friends came over. The weather wasn't very nice so we all had to stay inside. Earlier, yesterday I went to the gym to do BC, as I heard on monday that they were gonna c'hange the schedule at the gym again and that I will have to start teaching BC again on monday evening. So far we have been on summer schedule, and they told me at first it would be for 12 weeks, and now they decided to get back to the regular schedule again starting monday instead of 4 weeks later. Wow, I have to rush now with learning the choreo for BC again. It'll be great teaching BC again. Tonight I'm planning to video my BP class, just to assess myself. Tomorrow I will have a training for a demo at the 'Fitvak Dagen' in Utrecht in october, right before my holiday. This weekend I will be going to the Les Mills AIM training. Really looking forward to that. Oh and before I forget, somewhere in between I have to work as well :-).
I'm off to the gym now, to get the video set up etc. Talk to ya later!

New Releases

Yesterday I went to the quarterly workshops. Good sessions for the workshops and awesome masterclasses again. The BP workshop was a really good one and also very usefull information to help participants in our classes. Bodypump is all about great body posture and this release is focussing on activating the 'core'. This will help you to get strong posture and a stable base before you start lifting your weights. I really enjoyed BP, this was the first release done by Glen as choreographer and I'd like to say: Good job Glen. I will have a good time.
BA was good as always. I like it when it's presented by Karin and Daniel. Both are pretty tall and that looks good on stage. Warm up track is "Be there" from which I think it's a good opening, it just tells you you've got to be there for this BA class. Track 3 will bring us to Brazil, which cheers you up when it starts to get tough. "Everybody on the floor" brings us to the first peak, and after that we actually get to go down on the floor for some upperbody conditioning. Then after the running track and the split room, we get to go to the interval track. For the people who do BP as well, it's a familiar one: "Everytime we Touch", but just in a higher speed. It gives lots of kicks followed by the 2nd and final power peak in track 9. You can't do anything else then 'Go deep'. Then some lower bodywork, which you should not forget and ofcourse the cooldown. It was great. Thanks Lisa and thanks Karin and Daniel for a great masterclass. Also the workshop session had some good info which helps us to get better and help our participants improve as well.
By the time I had to do BC, I was so tired and the inside temperature had raised to about 40 degrees I think and we couldn't open the doors because of the noise. I didn't manage to do full BC class, I only had breakfast so far, so after track 6 I could see little stars in front of my eyes. I decided that that wasn't the way to go, so I decided to watch the rest of BC as I had to assess the last BP masterclass after the BC class. Pretty tough doing BA and BC without any rest in between, especially w/o any oxygen in the room. It was actually kind a neat to watch the BC presentation. Claudia and Daniel always have nice presenations together. It's very inspiring. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go the workshop as it was at the same time as BA. I know the workshop had some special attention for the jab, which I think is good as this a move frequently done in BC.

I also think the general workshop on coaching is a good one. It will make us more of a coach instead of an instructor. How to become a mastercoach? What do you think, will make someone a good instructor/mastercoach? What brings you back to your groupfitness class everytime? There can be so many things, but when you have a lousy instructor in front of you, who isn't motivated, doesn't move properly, or isn't able to communicate with you, most people will probably not come back after the first time in class. Well there are 10 things for us as coaches, we need to work on. Some come naturally, some you have to work on, but practise gives results even for us as coaches.

Have fun with the new releases, even though it might be a while before they will be launched at our club. It gives me a while to learn 'm :-)

Bob the Builder

Wow, am I tired or what. 2 Days of working at the house. Luckily I had Bob the Builder helping me. Actually it was my dad who was helping, but that's about the same, except for the fact he doesn't look like Bob :-). A couple of weeks ago I have restyled my balcony and now it was time for my kitchen. Yesterday and today we have been working on it ... and now it's almost finished. I'm very happy with my 'new' restyled kitchen. I'm not much of a cook, so I did not want to spent to much money on a completely new kitchen, and I'm very happy with teh things my dad was able to do. My work was mostly getting the stuff from the store and holding everything on the right spot. Carry stuff back and forth etc .... but still, I can feel my legs. Only a few details left, and some painting to do, but that I can handle myself. When that's finished, I still have another project to go... a new floor in the house. Only that won't be on a short notice....First I will be going on holiday to New Zealand.

Tomorrow I'm going to the quarterly. Looking forward to that. I hope I will have a good night rest, so I won't be as tired as I'm now. I hope I will see some people I know, as I won't be going to Nieuwegein now, but to Roosendaal. Usually I am going to Nieuwegein, because it's closer to home, but next week I have to work so I'm not able to go to all workshops. So I will only be assessing in Nieuwegein. Sunday I have to work again. It's good to have had a few days off of work.

Saturday

Saturday morning I had to teach BP, because my collegue is on holiday. As I had to get up early anyways I decided to go to BA class. My collegue asked me if I wanted to team teach .... sure why not, I still like that a lot. But in the morning BA, wow I still think that's tough. I always need some time to wake my body up. I told the people in class I really admire them, as they get out of bed for BA every saturday morning. They all had to laugh. Saturday morning is not as crowded as monday, and most people that are going to that class know me from monday's class. During upperbody conditioning I could feel the sweat run into my eyes... Everybody worked really hard, tried to jump higher, move further.... good job. Unfortunately there are not a lot of men in BA class at our club, but it was really nice to see that the 3 guys we had in class, were right in front of stage. We called them our supermen yesterday. And tough guys as they are, they stayed for BP class as well.
With BP class or RPM/Spinning you'll see a lot of men in class, but with other classes it's still mostly women. Too bad, but I think a lot of men just think that BA just some 'girly class' . HA... just to tell them BA is a high energy athletic work out, and just like the slogan for BA: 'Everything else is just a warm up' Mmmm, maybe dutch men aren't as tough as they think they are :-))). No I'm just kidding, I hope we will be able to convince more men to go to classes at the gym, because it is a lot of fun and it gives your body a great workout. When I did my BA training, there were 12 men and only 7 women, so I think that's shows it's not just a 'girly workout'.
When I went home yesterday after class I had some bad luck, it was raining so hard and I took my bike to the gym. I did not have time to wait for the rain to stop 'cause I had to work, so I was completely wet by the time I got home. If I had brought some shampoo, I could have washed my hair during my bikeride home. After work I went over to friends. We chatted, snacked, watched a movie and had a nice evening.

Today

This morning I woke up with the radio playing 'From Paris to Berlin...', and because I still like that song I decided to play it as this evenings squat track during pump class. Somehow this song reminds me of my holiday earlier this year in New Zealand. I got to present the track in Susan's BP class when I was in Auckland. I was really glad that I was able to teach day my own BP class today. Actually I had to work, and I had some difficulties to change my shift to an earlier shift. Usually I have a collegue at the gym with whom I can switch a class, but she's on holiday now and I realized that a bit late. I was very happy a found someone last monday who could work for me, so I had the day off today, and I will be working saturday evening. I'm really thankfull to her, especially when I found out it was chaos at the airport, because of terrorist threats at London Heathrow airport. I heard all flights to London Heathrow were delayed or cancelled, so that always gives us unhappy passengers, who usually do not want to understand that this is for their own safety and that we do not cancel flights to just tease them. When things like this happen it always costs a lot of money for the airline, so we are not pleased either. I'll find out tomorrow how the situation was today.
I enjoyed my day off, did some stuff at home, went out to check out some things as I want to fix up my kitchen and the floor in my house. Got some nice ideas, so this will be happening in the next few months. I won't be able to do everything in a short time as I still want to go on holiday as well :-). I went to gym around 6pm, I had to teach the abdominal class (15 min) as well. Pump class started at 7pm. It was crowded, and again I was very happy that I could teach my own class. I don't really like to skipp my own class, but sometimes I do have to because of work. At the airport I have a couple of nice collegues who always try to help me out, so it doesn't happen very often that I have to skipp class. When I started teaching the thursday evening, it wasn't a very full class, but I'm glad it is now. It's always good to see the familiar faces again, working hard and challenging themselves. You can see the faces in pain, working their butts of and then, just by giving them some attention, getting this smile from them. With that smile they just let me know that they haven't died yet :-) Todays class felt good, found an old bicep track with Robbie's 'Let me entertain you' and ofcourse DJ Tiesto is still awesome for lunges. I could feel my own legs riding my bike home. Oh oh and in 2 weeks I have to teach a spinning class right after thursday's BP class. I'm not certified to teach RPM, so when I'm substituting I always teach freestyle spinning. It has been a while for me teaching spinning. so my but will probably be sore then. I have to go check out my closet to find my biker shorts, that'll help being less painfull. Well, I'm off to bed now. Sleep tight.

How cruel can one be?

Today I heard an awfull story of a collegue of mine. I hadn't seen her for a while, but at first that didn't seem very strange to me, since I have been away to the Headoffice for 2 weeks and we work in shifts, so it's easy to miss one another for a while. Well today I spoke to her and she told me something that you do not want to happen to anyone. One of her best friends got murdered in her own house. Can you believe that? I have been thinking about it ever since she has told me. I can't believe that someone could do something like that? I feel very sad for her and ofcourse also for the family of the victim. When I heard about above, it just made me realize again that you must enjoy your life every single moment. Life is just too short to waist any of it. You never know when it's over.

2 Years ago I was on holiday in Peru and I'm very happy I'm still here. We were driving in a bus when all of a sudden a white pickup truck pulled over right in front of the bus. 4 Guys with guns jumped out of the truck and came in the bus. I was sitting in the front seat with 2 of the guys right in front of me. They were pointing their guns at me and my friend and you can imagine, I wasn't very comfortable sitting there. They took us to some place far from the larger road, so they could take their time. They were not satisfied with some money. They have been going through our stuffs for at least 3 hours while were laying down in the sand next to the bus. I will not tell you all details as that will be too difficult for me. In total there were six men and they took so much of our stuff. Money passports, camera's. Then they stabbed the tires of the bus and left. I happened it the first half of my holiday and I decided that since they already took so much of my stuff, I didn't want them to take the rest of my holiday. The whole group stayed and we were of good support to eachother. I'm very glad I finished my holiday as planned. Ofcourse I look back to this holiday with mixed feelings, but I can tell you I still think it's a beautyfull country with also lots of nice people. When I look back I think it was just a matter of timing: being on the wrong place at the wrong time. Ofcourse I have had very difficult time after this, especially with trusting people. When I walk on the streets and a person keeps walking right behind me, it still gives me the creeps. Now 2 years later, I have learned a lot from this experience. The most important thing is, as I have mentioned above... enjoy your life! Do the things you like and don't postpone them. You never know if you will be able to them later. The story of my collegue made me realize it again. Take care.