It’s Thursday! Time for some throwback video’s. In the first video I am working on some hoods from the deck on the back of the boat and from the cockpit, Peter is cleaning the screw, and I have some coffee while watching Peter at work. This was all in January, when we were living in the mansion in the kunuku (see blog click here). The video is a very short one!
The next video is from the work we did at the end of January. We renovated the cockpit, that means removing all the caulk, fill it with teak deck epoxy filler, sanding and put epoxy over it again to protect it. I added the walk from the boat to the boat yard canteen and back, how Peter fixes the holes in LIV and some other fun stuff.
In the meantime
I wanted to post last week, but we had a famous Ashtanga Yoga teacher on the island! She was giving a retreat as part of the Bonaire Yoga and Wellness Week! It was also part of the Yoga Teacher Training I am doing. The famous teacher is Laruga Glaser, born in the United States and currently living in Stockholm, although she is frequently somewhere else on the world teaching on retreats. We had a very diverse group with beginners and very much experienced, and it was great to see the progress of both!
She taught the Mysore classes in the morning and three very interesting workshops. Mysore is the place where Ashtanga Yoga is from and taught in India. It is a specific sequence that you practice in the morning on your own breath (every breath is linked to a movement) where teachers assist. Laruga is officially authorized by the Ashtanga school in Mysore (she visited 14 times!) and she has a lot of experience (decades?). I learned so much! It was a serious upgrade of my daily practice. The thing that sticks with me the most is the way to breathe during the practice. A breath taken in with broadening of the ribcage, lifting up the diaphragm and the pelvic floor, extending the spine and the sides of the waist, and trying to keep this length with the exhale. It changed almost all the postures for me, and made them more energetic and conscious.
I made summaries for the group of the first two workshops and that took me some time. I also spend some time in preparing two workshops I would give at the Bonaire Yoga and Wellness Festival. One was an introduction to Yoga and one about the meaning of OM. For the readers that don’t know: Yoga is based on the Yoga Sutra’s of Patanjali written some 2000 years ago in India. It is a practical guide to attain Samadhi, a sort of higher awareness. It describes yoga as the restraining of the modifications of the mind. In other words, to control the thoughts, feelings, emotions and behavior patterns conscious and subconscious. The Sutra’s are non-religious and it wants the student to test, be skeptical and personally research the statements that are described. I can recommend to read a translation of these Sutra’s! I used the Sutra’s for both the workshops and the attendants were enthusiastic, I think. The Yoga Festival on Bonaire was a success! There were several tents on Te Amo Beach where workshops, meditations and massages were given and the vibe was really positive. I’m looking forward to next year!
Hermit Crab Beach Party
Those activities took some time from blog-writing and working on the boat. But Peter is still going strong! I should ask him to make some video’s of how the work on LIV is going, because I haven’t been there for a while. That feels a bit weird, but I also feel that how I spend my days now, is very helpful for the future. There are a few workshops for assisting and classes for practicing with teaching to go, but I have the theoretical part almost done. Tuesday I made the two tests about the theory, philosophy, anatomy and history, and yesterday I handed in the final essay. I am waiting for the response!
Yesterday I also made a trip to the beach for some meditation, studying for teaching the first half primary led ashtanga class this Saturday and enjoying the sunset. The sky was turning pink and orange after the sun went down. It is like we have a ‘golden hour’ before the sun sets, and I think about the hour after sunset as a sort of ‘pink hour’. It’s not every day, but when the clouds turn bright pink and orange, it gives a special light on the beach, comparable to a solar eclipse.
This time there were a lot of hermit crabs and I couldn’t resist making some video’s. To close this blog I put them together with a baby gecko on the beach and the sunset. Enjoy!
