FitEX 2016

November is coming up fast! I’m already gearing up for another stint at FitEX 2016, the conference for the fitness and exercise industry in New Zealand. I really enjoyed myself presenting at FitEX 2015. At first I was rather nervous and felt like a fish out of water. My previous presentations done mainly within the yoga community and I wasn’t sure how what I do would be received in the fitness community.

I had two presentations. One was directly after the opening ceremony on the Saturday morning and it was a Power Yoga Rave. One of the first of the presentations up on the weekend schedule. It was well attended. I created a power yoga sequence based on ladder sequencing. The music matched the momentum. We began slowly warming our bodies up with the key poses that would later be built into the Vinyasa. Attendees got familiar with the postures in a fun and light manner, allowing their bodies to open up and through that we created our teacher / student relationship. I could feel their warmth toward me and they easily trusted my guidance as I began building the Vinyasa step by step. The music picked up and the poses became more demanding with repetition.

What amazed me was that as a class they were all so connected to the breathing queues. I had mentioned at the beginning of class to only breathe to my queues if it was comfortable. A lot of the attendees had never done yoga before, so I wanted them to breathe naturally. However, the breath ebbed and flowed like the tide and could be heard over my voice and the music. This created a sense of community within the class. They built trust in each other and in themselves as I guided them through longer sets of postures. They absolutely didn’t miss a beat. Sweat was pouring, laughter was heard. After class lots of people came up to connect with me, thank me and it just made me feel like I belonged.

On Sunday I offered a Mind and Body Yin Yoga presentation. It had more people than the previous session. I started the session with a small talk on the chronic busyness of our time and some of the reasons behind that. I touched on the expectations we put on ourselves, the expectations placed on us from others and how we can fall into a trap of busyness that makes us feel important and valued, when really we are never properly taking time out. This has an impact on our wellbeing, our performance and more importantly on connection.

Then the talk became about connection. Mind and body connection, personal self-connection and the ability to connect with our lives, relationships and purpose from a connected and centred place within ourselves. My message was then outlined by a brief personal story and the idea of embracing a daily practice of mind body connection to stay on course in our individual lives and not wait for a crisis to teach us what’s important in life. It’s not the new car, the social status or the nice clothes that really matters. It only takes a brush with fatal illness, catastrophe or loss in some way for us to remember how precious life is.

The next part of the session was practical. We turned off the lights and lay down to begin some breathing exercises I have developed to assist Mind Body connection. After some time of breathing practice we moved through some very gentle and slow Yin Yoga postures and attendees learned about some of the science behind mindfulness, ways to build resilience through support (physically and metaphorically) and how to deal with silence. Silence can really confront a lot of us in this world of mega stimulation. It’s vital that we learn how to be still, quiet and keep things simple so we can listen to our bodies and respond to their needs. After the session I spent another half an hour talking with people individually, answering questions, receiving thanks.

Part of what I was doing at FitEX was linked into the Exercise Industry Award which Courage My Love sponsors. This was the 10th year the awards have been in place, but it’s the first year that the Mind Body Award has been available. I’m proud for Courage My Love to be the sponsor behind the award and I have a strong connection with it. Throughout the weekend, it seemed each of the Exercise New Zealand representatives made their way to me to connect and welcome me into the scene. I left the conference feeling excited about future opportunities with the organisation and look forward to becoming more involved each year.

Check out the FitEx Website »