Relaxing evening

This is the first evening since ... well I don't know how long ago, that I don't have to do anything. Don't missunderstand me in this, I'm busy girl and I like that a lot, but the last 2 weeks I had to go back to my old job to give some assistance. This wasn't really my own choice, but some things just have to be done. Because of that I have been working regular office hours for 2 weeks, which seems to take more of your time off than working in shifts. Good thing about it is, that I have been working extra hours, which gives me the possibilty to get some extra time on my vacation card :-) .... and yessss.... that's good for my next holiday which I'm planning for Oct/Nov. You wanna know where I'm going to? Yep ..... New Zealand again. I had such a great time in March, so I just want to go back. Haven't seen the North Island yet, so that's what I'm planning right now. Again I want to go for at least 3 weeks, cause I want to visit Les Mills in Auckland again. More about that later.
Tonight I first planned to go to the gym, but later I decided it would be better to take some rest. Now I will be going tomorrow morning and do some BA team teaching with Josanne. No tropical out fit this time :-)

What did I do on my evening off? Well.... grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, some other household stuff that needed to be done..... relaxing I said??? Mmmm sort of. At least I could do it without being in a hurry. I have been enjoying a cup of tea outside, and read a magazine. I have put some candles out on my balcony and I looks nice. Temperature outside is better than inside the house, so I prefer to sit outside right now. There's nothing interesting on tv, so there's no reason to sit inside anyways. I still can't believe that the only drops of rain I have seen this month have been falling down last saturday. Which bring me back to the BODYPUMP on the beach, I'm still waiting for some more pictures. There have been a few articles in different newspapers this week as well. They were talking about 700 people .... can you believe that. I could see people everywhere, but so many? And the best thing was ... so many smiling faces all together!!

19 August I will be going to our quarterly here in Holland. Still one release behind as I just read the filming is done 13 august for BC 30, BP 60 and BA 55. We will be getting BC 29, BP 59 and BA 54. I'm wondering if there would be any filming in November since I'm gonna be in NZ around that time. Would be nice to experience that once.
Well I'm of to bed, since I have to wake up early tomorrow morning. Good Night 2 ya all.

Winter and Summer

First photo's...

This is just a first impression of the workout. I do not have any pictures from BB or XCO yet, but I will probably get some later. Just by watching the pictures I get this great feeling again. Tomorrow I will play the BP tracklist again during BP class.

Today I went to my parents' boat. It was pretty cloudy in the morning but later on it was really nice. I still can't believe, that we managed to pick this only one day of rain we had during this summer to do our workout. At least near the beaches we didn't have any rain in July so far. I was watching the news this evening and only about 150km from here, they were able to use their kanoe's in the streets because it had been raining so badly this afternoon. Strange country isn't it?! Yeah that's our own little Holland.

The day after....

Awesome!!! I can't tell how amazing it was yesterday. There were people everywhere. I did not have enough fingers and toes to count them :-) Right now I don't know where to start to tell you how it was. Maybe the beginning, but it will be a pretty long story.
I woke up pretty early yesterday as I had to be at the beach at 9.00am to help out with the last preparations. It was a bit cloudy but very warm already. When I got to the beach we fisrt had a cup of coffee and later on got started working. Putting up the flags, getting stuff from the car etc. Then we started to make the goodiebags. The sun was shining at that time and it was hot .... no complaints from me, cause I love it. It took us about 3 hours to fix over 700 goodiebags, with T-shirts, caps, toiletbags, flyers and blue ice. Eveyone was working there butt's of in the heat. We had to drink a lot and when we were finished we went to eat something. We could see more and more people coming in. They even came in with full busses from the other side of the country. Cool hey! At around 2.00pm big clouds came in ..... uuhh... that's was not completely what we planned..... at 3.00pm it started raining. Can you believe that.... sun for over three weeks... not a single drop of rain.... and 1 hour before we start our beach work out ... RAIN. At 3.30pm there was a XCO workout planned....that one was moved. The guys from the beach club told us that they saw on the radar that most rain would be gone by 4.00pm..... and they were right. It was not raining anymore when we started the workout. Few people left, but luckily most Bodypumpers are tough people who do not get blown out of the field easily and certainly not cause of a few raindrops. Thank you all for staying !!! During warm up, I can;t tell how cool it was to see everyone moving at the same timing. There is this transition from upright row to overhead press. Wow!! First we saw all the heads of the people, then we could see the ellbows move under the bars and after that it was just bars in the air. Amazing. Everyone could feel the vibes, happy smiling fases everywhere... and about fitness magic ...... it was all over the place. Spoke to a lot of people afterwards and they all had a great time. No one was talking about the rain, most people forgot about it because it was so good to be a part of it. For us as presenters it was an awesome experience as well, but our main concern was to bring all thes people an amazing event and we succeeded. Special thanks to Harry who did all the work for this event. Good job!
Ofcourse after BP it was not finished yet, there was the XCO workout and after that the Bodybalance. I did not do the BB as I wanted to see how it look like fro higher up. Beautyful to see all these people. The six girls on stage did a good job with keeping their balance. The platform wasn't that steady but they all stood there. Unfortunately there weren't as much balancers as there were pumpers, but still it looked really good.
After all the workouts there was BBQ and belive it or not .... the sun came out!! The party was outdoors and we danced and danced and it was a great day!!!

Tracklist for BP:
01 BP 50 Scream for More Kate Ryan
02 BP 50 Celebrate Good Times DJ Bobo
03 BP 43 Enter Sandman Metallica
04 BP 44 Heaven DJ Sammy
05 BP 39 Let's Get Loud Jennifer Lopez
06 BP 43 The Power H Block/Snap
07 BP 41 Silence Delirium feat. Sarah McLachlan
08 BP 39 Operation Blade (Radio Edit) Public Domain
09 BP 44 Just A Little Liberty X
10 BP 56 Angels, Robbie Williams

Pictures wil come up later.

BODYPUMP on the beach!

Right now it's 8.00am, I'm eating my breakfast and I have just packed my stuff for this afternoon. The sun is shining and even tough it's still early it's already warm outside. I was looking to the weatherforecast yesterday evening and there are possiiblities that it will rain and that there will be lightning .... uuuhhh .... Please no!! It's really amazing that it's only 22 july, and we already had so many days of sun. Lot's of people are complaining about the heat, but I think they are the same people complaing when it's raining like usual during a dutch summer. Well.... I love this kind of weather and I hope it'll go like this for a long time :-)
I have to be at the beach by 09.00. We're gonna do some music tests, prepare the stage and everything. It's going to be so cool this afternoon. Tomorrow or monday I will tell you more and I hope I'll have some pics by then as well.

Almost to the beach

It's almost D-day, 2 more nights. I'm still really excited. I saw the weather will still be hot, but there's a slight chance for a few drops of rain.... unfortunately. Please keep your fingers crossed, that they'll fall down somewhere far away from our spot on the beach.

Schedule for saturday:
16.00 BODYPUMP
17.00 BODYBALANCE
18.00 BBQ & Party

8 More days...

Next saturday.... The big event: BODYPUMP on the beach. I'm really looking forward to it. Still keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be nice and sunny, just like we have had the last couple of weeks. Every night I say a little prayer and I hope that'll work. If you want some more information or you'd like to take part in this event, just click here.
We have got the tracklist ready and I can tell you one thing about it .... it's GOOD!! If you want to find out more about this list, just be there 22 july 2006, Bloemendaal aan Zee!! Otherwise you've got to wait till the day after.

Hope to see you there!

Is everything possible?

It's too hot to be outside, It's too hot to be inside and didn't know what to do anymore so I started to sort out a few things from my days in Synchro. Didn't come very far, as I started reading old stuff and looking at pictures and just started thinking of the good times I had in Synchro. I found this text in between my stuff:

Anything is possible,
If you think it is worthwhile
If you're willing to go the distance,
To go the extra mile.

With determination and effort,
You can often achieve more
Because you don't always get what you wish,
But what you work for.

Dreams can become challenging,
But no matter what the cost
Strive to complete the task before you,
And you'll never end up lost.

So bring with you your goals,
And leave your doubts behind
Whether you think you can or can't,
You certainly will find.

You'll be right either way-
-so never quit, and this is why:
You'll never become a failure,
Until you fail to try.

When I started reading my diary from our National Team trainingcamp in Canada in 1995, I could hardly believe all the things we had to do and that we actually did all these extremely hard things. It seemed almost impossible... but indeed ALMOST... we managed to do it, so it was possible! We just had one thing on our mind's and that was to improve our skills and try to qualify for Atlanta '96.... Together with our whole team we worked our butt's of, but unfortunately we didn't qualify. Still, reading above, I don't think we failed as we did not quit as a team and we tried our best. We never gave up.

I always thought I would not be able to be a groupfitness instructor. Why? I don't know, that's just what I used to think. Then I decided to give it a try .... That has just been one of the best decisions I ever made.... I gave it try and I managed to do it and the best thing: I'm loving it.

Don't give up b4 trying something..... you might even like it.

Below some pics of my last year in synchro at European Cup In Bari, Italy. We got National Champions with the team that year and were selected to represent Holland at European Cup A in 2001:

Tropical

Last monday we started our new quarter at the club with the launch. The theme was tropical and even though outside it wasn't very tropical, inside we had the palmtrees and made the temperatures rise during the workouts :-)
We started at 7pm with RPM. I don't teach RPM so I was able to prepare and get ready for BP. We did BP with the 3 of us and I was happy I got to do the chest track. I love it's such a cool track. After BP we did BC, just the 2 of us, we had to run and change our outfits quickly and had fun presenting BC. I like doing BC together as you can make a lot of fun by 'beating up' eachother. Okay let's put it the nice way, by pretending to beat up eachother :-). And last but not least BA. I love BA, I can't choose my most favourate program, but I think BA is getting very very close. Especially BA 53, this opening with 'Open your heart to me'is awesome. And then I love track 2 as well.... 'finally'... It eminds me of the time a spent in Canada on trainingcamp with the national Synchroteam. We watched the movie Priscilla Queen of the desert over there and I think it'such a funny movie. Okay let's get back to BA 53, it's just so much fun and the music makes you even want to work harder, so it's a very tough release as well. We closed the evening with BB. I don't teach BB but I think it's a beautyful program and a very good combo with BA and BP. At the gym people could get fruit sticks and fruit cocktails, so we even thought of the hungry ones amongst us :-). Herewith some pics from last monday to get an impression.

RPM: Calista, Josanne


BP: Mirelle, Eline, Chantal



BC: Eline, Chantal



BA: Bogdan, Josanne, Chantal

BB: Mirelle, Joyce

Challenge

Accept the challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory!

Weekend

It's a sad evening this evening. Our soccer guys didn't qualify for quarter finals in Worldcup. I have been wathcing the game with a bunch of people (family and friends), so we had a good evenig with BBQ, but it only had a sad ending. The rain outside goes good with the atmosphere this evening after the game :-(

Anyway the rest of the weekend was great, even though I had to work. Friday night I went out with a friend. Got home a bit too late as I had an early shift on saturday. Anyway It was a great night and I didn't regret going :-). Saturday therefore I was too tired to do anything after work, so I just stayed home, sat in the sun and read a book. This morning I had to work as well, but time went by fast, so before I knew I was home again. Tomorrow I don't have to go work and my dad will come over and help me with cutting down 2 small trees and do some other stuff. I have a big balcony at home with about 24m2, so it's almost like a small garden.

Surpise

Yesterday my collegue from the other club here in the city showed up at my BC class. I didn't know she was coming, but instantly we decided to teach together. It was quite busy for a monday BC class, so we had lots of fun teaching together. We have been doing that a few times and by now we know what we can expect from eachother and we are able fool around for a bit. With BA I also had a collegue teaching with me, because she will have to tape her class this saturday for her international certficate and wanted some extra practise. With BP I was on my own ... and wow, was I tired or what. Sometimes I think it makes it easier when you teach together, as you don't have to talk as much, but somehow this didn't work today. I was exhausted at the end of the evening. Maybe we have challenged eachother too much :-).... or maybe 3 days of only 5 hours sleep is not enough..... mmm :-( Maybe I should go to bed early tonight.
When I teach 3 classes, I always give BC and BA full energy and just step back in weights with BP. Sometimes I teach 4 BP classes a week or even 4 days in a row and then I have to step back in weights anyways. I just have to take care of my body and health as well. I find it just so hard to say no. I have learned to do so every once in while, otherwise I don't have any time left to do other fun things. Even though I think BA and BP especially are few of the things I like most.
Next week's launch is going to be so much fun! :-) Only 6 more days to go

Outdoor cycling

It has been over a year, but yesterday I decided to go for an outdoor bike ride. I had an early shift at work, the sun was shining and it wasn't too hot outside. When I got home I first had to get my bike ready (tires were flat) and I had to eat something before I could leave.
So at 17.00hrs I was ready and hopped on my racebike. It felt so good. I didn't really have a destination, but I just decided to enjoy the outdoors and listen to my ipod to learn the new tracks for next weeks release! Lot's of people were riding their bikes and later on, when I was riding along the 'Ringvaart', there were so many people on the water with their boats. Everyone seemed to be so happy and were waving to eachother. At times like this I alwasy realize that Holland is such a small country, but also very beautyfull. Sometimes people seem to be in rush all the time, but with the weather like this everyone is so relaxed and happy :-)
I was away a little less than 2 hrs and drove almost 60km. My butt is really sore now.....mmmm... I couldn't find my bikershorts so I wore my regular shorts..... auauauwww .... not funny! Maybe some people can remember their first rpm class.....It feels like that and then a little worse :-( In New Zealand I did one RPM class with Susan at Takapuna... great class, but I didn't have my bikershorts then either. You should think I have learned from that ... noop, not really I guess. Maybe this time.....

I just returned from a friends birthday. She planned an english High tea..... but is was so warm that we actually drank only Ice tea .... but ofcourse we still had all the nice sandwiches and sweet stuff... mjummy. It's good I had my bikeride yesterday and will have to teach again tomorrow!

Goodbye pump...

Today was a little bit sad. Due to my new job at the airport I have started working in shifts and I will have to work 2 out of 3 weekends. No problem as I love my job, but for teaching my BODYPUMP class on sunday's, it is a problem. Today, after almost 3 1/2 years, I have taught my last sunday morning pump class. The members organized an unforgettable goodbye pump for me. When I walked into the room, they decorated my barbell with balloons and there was confetti on the floor. One of the guys in my class wrote a special warming up track together with a fellow pump instructor and he took over my class for warming up ... uhhh.... just to let you know, I always want to have and j keep control and now I didnot have it for the warming up ... Difficult ..... They wrote a choreography on: "Don't leave me (us) this way" and a special song written for the dutch soccer team at the worldcup in Germany (today was Holland's first match). Almost all people were dressed in orange because of that. I was glad that I got the strings back in my hands for the remaining tracks :-)... pfewww Afterwards a got some cards and presents, wow, and a friend made this really good apple pie!!! We had coffee tea and chatted. I will miss this class for sure, but I'm glad I still got my Monday's and Thursday's. In the afternoon we went outside to enjoy the sun again and at 3pm Holland played against Servia & Montenegro. Our guys won their first match!! Robben scored the only goal. Dutch people are always funny when there are big soccer tournaments going on. Everybody just goes crazy, dressing in orange, painting their faces orange etc and we could see on the big screen at the gym that the whole stadium was looking orange. Cool! So that's why we dressed orange as well during Pump class this morning.

To get a little impression see pictures below

Finally...

...Summer!! This weather just gives me energy. I love the sun and I might be born in the wrong country for the that, as I'm always cold here.... but at the moment it's great! Temperatures up to 30 degrees, bright blue skies, wheehaa. This morning I have been teaching 2 classes, BODYATTACK and BODYPUMP. It wasn't very busy, as I think a lot of people probably went out to enjoy the sun, but nevertheless I enjoyed it as always. After that I went to the beach with a friend and surprisingly it wasn't as crowded as I would have expected it. We could find a parkingspot easily and started out with a nice cup of coffee. It was just great at the beach, a cool breeze made it feel really good. We had lunch and later on dinner as well at the beach and then decided to spent the rest of the evening there as well. Today just felt like a holiday!

Obstacle or Stepping Stone?

A block of granite which is an obstacle on the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.

Picture: Chantal NZ, Nelson NP mar06

Holiday weekend

Saturday I still had to to go to work and monday as well. But still it was a holiday weekend because of Whitsunday. In the Netherlands that will also mean monday is an extra holiday :-).
Even though I still had to work at the airport it felt sort of like a long weekend. Sunday I went to the sauna with a friend of mine and we spent all day relaxing. We were very lucky as most of the day the sun was actually shining and I got a nice tan :-). Monday I had an early shift so I was home early as well. The gym was closed during the evening so I didn't have any classes to teach, so I went to gym right after work with a fellow attack instructor and we have been preparing for the launch of the the Les Mills quarter 26 June. I just love BODYATTACK 53. Well done Lisa & friends at Les Mills International, awesome release.

Tonight I will be teaching BODYPUMP and BODYCOMBAT at 2 different clubs of Healthcity. Both classes are not my own, but I might be seeing some people I know from my own classes.
Saturday I will also be substituting 2 classes. Í just love teaching and I while substituting for other instructors it makes me again and again aware of the way I'm teaching. We do not have these huge studios as in Auckland, so when you know a lot people personal in your class you are also aware of their mistakes and it makes it easy to forget about other things. But it is so important to keep on telling the safety instructions and proper ways to do the moves as it will prevent your members from getting injuries. Nobody goes to gym to get injured, so we as instructors should be aware of all that happens in the class. Never just think that people know what to do and what to think of. Maybe some do, but most don't. Just don't make it sound lke a tape your playing every time in class .... Reymond thanks for bringing up that subject! When Susan T. was in the Netherlands she gave some good advice on that, and now sometimes I imagine my Mom is taking my class. She doesn't have a clue on what BP, BA and BC is about, so I just think of her and pretend that I have to explain everything to her while doing the moves. And ofcourse don't forget to have fun while teaching or taking a class!!!

Below some pics taken at our quarterly in May.




Nice jump Karin and Brigitte with BA track 9!!

Summer?

Today it's 1 June and when I'm looking out of the window it seems like it's november. I just can't believe the weather has been so bad all the time. It makes me feel a little sad. I really like the sun and we only had few suny days so far. When the sun is shining people seem to be more happy. Right now a lot of grumpy faces, people rushing through the streets wearing thick coats and sweaters. Mmm, maybe I should think positive... all the rain which is coming down now cannot come down anymore in July...... Why??

In july we will have this huge workout at the beach with the club.... BODYPUMP on the beach, followed by BODYBALANCE on the beach and a big BBQ. Last year we did the Sunset BODYPUMP in august. Unfortunately we didn't get to see a nice sunset because of this typical dutch weather, but still we had a great time.

If you want some more info on this years BODYPUMP/BODYBALANCE on the beach just click here. It'll be 22 july in Bloemendaal aan zee at Beachclub Vroeger. You don't have to be a member to join in. Just bring your happy face :-)

Quarterly

Yeahh, last weekend we had our 2nd quarterly workout of 2006. BP 58, BA 53 and BC 28 were presented by our mastertrainers. It was awesome. I can't say anything then that I love BA 53, great warm up with open your heart. It really gives good performance opportunities to start your class. I already did some tracks of BA 53 during my stay in Auckland, but at that time the big studio and de large number of people in the class were already so impressive that I had forgotten most things of the choreo/music at that time. At the quarterly one of the presenters came up to me and asked me to take place on one of the smaller side stages... sure, no problem. I had a good time up there :-) I really liked the squat track of BP 57, so I was happy to find out that track 3 of BA 53 again takes us from Paris to Berlin, just in a higher speed now.
BP 58 is really emphasizing the position of the shoulders. This will give more effective use of the muscles and this will people to develop a better bodyposition. Als the new move, mac raise was shown and explained. Feels good :-). I always like to do the shoulder tracks.
BC 28 brings back the jump kick, together with lots of other good combinations of fast moves kicks. Can't wait for the launch at the club. There's no date set yet, but it will probably be somewhere near the end of june.

Party

Yesterday we had the bachelorette party of my friend who's getting married next week. We picked her up from the gym were she was playing tennis with her dad. She sort of expected the party this weekend, as she's getting married friday, but it still was a surprise when we picked her up. Before that I teached Bodyattack and Bodypump class and then had to hurry to go our other gym were we also have the tennis club. The sun was shining so we had picked a really good day. We were going to Scheveningen. Unfortunately the traffic was really bad. They closed one road, so that was one of the reasons why it was so busy, but also because of the weather. Scheveningen is one of the beaches, so lots of people decided to enjoy this nice day and go the beach. My friend likes painting a lot, so we decided to go painting. We started with a high tea and fininshed with a really, really good dinner. The painting in between, well I will not tell all secrets, but we had this good looking male model...... I felt a kind of sorry for him.... 12 girls giggling the whole time :-). After dinner we went to a bar danced, had a few drinks and then went back home. My freind enjoyed her day and so did we.

This morning I had some problems waking up, but I had to get out of bed for sunday's Bodypump. Now, later in the afternoon, I'm glad I teach classes, as it feels good that I worked out this morning. If I would only be following the class, I don't think I would have gone. It wasn't very crowded, but the people enjoyed the mix I made with old tracks. As allways it was a nice sunday morning Bodypump. After class we sat outside and had a few coffees and enjoyed the sun. It feels so good finally having the sun out. Even though is was late yesterday (or early this morning), the sun just gives me some extra energy! Tonight I'm going out for dinner with a few friends. We have picked this japanese restaurant. I never been at the place, so I'll just have to wait and see if it's good.

And then the weekend is over allready. It went by really fast. Next weekend I also have to full weekend of, which is good as our quarterly is coming up. Looking forward to that :-)) BP 58, BA 53 and BC 28 are waiting for us.

Spring's coming up

Finally spring's coming up here in Holland. Monday was an awfull day with lots of rain, and I was actually longing for my wintercoat. But since wednesday there was an enormous change, from10 degrees it went all the way up to 25 degrees. Wow, and lucky me I had early shifts so I was able to enjoy the sun almost all afternoon. I decided to give my body a rest, and didn't go to the gym. I didn't have to teach any classes on wedsnesday anyways. So what I did instead was just laying in the sun with my I-pod and started to listen and learn some pretty old pump tracks. I know a lot of tracks from older pump CD's, but there are also some tracks which I hadn't played for years. I had a nice mix of old tracks for thursday's class put together. Tracks from 38, 43, 45. Some of the newer members had never heard them and thought is was playing a new CD. Thursday was also a nice day, but before pumpclass I still decided to do some bodyattack training as well, just on my own.
It was surprisingly busy on thursday night, considering it was a schoolholiday and also 4 may (remembrance day for WOII victims). We always hold 2 minutes silence at 20.00hrs on 4 may.
Bodypumpclass is from 18.30-19.30 so it finishes before 20.00, but still lot of people prefer to be at home or come together at different war memorial monuments or other places were they have some ceremonies. The last couple of years I went to the church which my grandpa was part of. He never returned form WOII sadly enough. For me it's pretty important to show respect and be silent for 2 minutes. So even though I was still at the gym, we sat down and remembered what had happened it the past. Actually nowadays it's not only WOII victims we remember but all people who offered themselves to go to any war, giving their lives for unknown people.
After that I had dinner at the gym with 2 friends. We sat outside till it got almost dark. The temperature was so nice outside, it actually felt like summer :-). I was glad I took my bike to the gym instead of the car, becaue it was so nice and warm even getting close to ten o'clock.

Today the weather was warm as well. I have been working at the ticketoffice for a full week now and I love it. Everyday is different, because different kinds of people are coming up to your desk al the time. I'm still learning lots of new stuff, so I'm pretty tired now after a full week of work. When I got home I sat outside for a while, reading a book and relax a bit. I did some shopping with my mom in the evening. A friend of mine is getting married next week and I still had to buy some clothes for that. I'm glad I finally found something nice, unfortunately I still do not have shoes to match my outfit :-(