Role models, and how inspiring and energising it can be to be around them

A laughter yoga class organised by one of my role models

As the title of this post suggests, today's topic is that of role models.  Most of us probably know someone that really loves what they do, someone that has found their true passion in life, and just being around them is energising and inspiring.  The weaker amongst us may be intimidated by them and try to avoid them, but if you are someone who wants to grow, just try being around them for a while and listening to what they have to say.  You may find that they ignite something inside you, and set you off on finding your own passion in life.

At present I have two role models.  Both are people that are extremely passionate about what they do, and people that I enjoy being around.  I only hope that one day I can discover my true passion in the way that they have discovered theirs.

I will introduce you today to one of my role models, and in a future post I will introduce you to the other.  So, drum roll please, ...................... for my first role model I introduce to you Fabiola Leon.

Fabiola Leon

Fabiola hails originally from Valencia in Venezuela and is a life coach who helps people to grow and learn on all personal levels.  I came to meet her through participating in one of her laughter yoga classes that was posted on Glocals only a few weeks ago.  She started the laughter yoga classes as a way to help her life coaching clients overcome their inhibitions and get closer to achieving their personal goals.  Her energy was contagious and since first meeting her I have been to every class that she has held since then. Her classes are now growing through word of mouth alone.

Fabiola loves hearing various success stories from her past and present clients, and it is this that keeps her going strong day after day.  When she is not giving life coaching classes or laughter yoga classes or being a mum, she can be found diligently studying self improvement material or blogging or thinking up her next business idea or event or promotion.

Fabiola's laughter yoga classes have helped various people including myself.  I recently suffered a breakup from my fiancee of 3.5 years (yes Anny for those of you that know me), and Fabiola's first laughter yoga class helped me a lot.  Regardless of whatever problems you have, laughing for 20 or 30 minutes makes them seem so much smaller in the hours or days afterwards.

One of the ladies that participated in a recent laughter yoga class suffers from high blood pressure.  She wrote to Fabiola after the class saying that she felt much better and more relaxed after the class and wanted to do it again.  In her first class she had to sit down and rest at various intervals.  In the class today however she was able to participate fully.  Was that down to the laughter yoga alone, or due to other circumstances too.  Of this I am not sure, but I am sure that the laughter yoga helped her to feel better.  Whether it be work or fitness or whatever, a good bout of healthy cathartic laughter can only but help rather than hinder.  Some studies have even gone so far as to suggest that laughter yoga can be comparably healthy to actual physical exercise.

It also came of no surprise to me that Fabiola recently got a Best Speaker award from her local Toastmasters club where she is an active member.  She was speaking about one of her passions - laughter yoga.  When you are speaking about something that you are passionate about, people tend to be engrossed, but on top of that Fabiola is a talented public speaker and also has experience of video blogging, interviewing successful entrepeneurs and business owners.

If you want to read more about her you can take a look at the following sites

Life Success Consultants - Fabiola Leon

Laughter Yoga Switzerland

I wish you all a fantastic evening and I am sure some of you are dying to know who is role model number two, but for that you will just have to wait.

The High Ropes Course of Kloten

As you may now have realised by all the information contained on my blog, Zürich (well Switzerland in general) is abundantly rich in fitness activities and things to do.  Well not far from Zürich airport, in the village of Kloten, lies a high ropes course or Seilpark as they call it in German.  I went there for the first time last Thursday with a couple of friends and we had a lot of fun.

After an initial briefing we were kitted up with a harness, carabiners and a flying fox and shown how to move along the course, by means of a mini course that they use for the demo part, and which is only 1m off the ground.  Attached to your harness you have 3 pieces of equipment.  You have one cord with a flying fox attached and two cords with quick release carabiners attached.  At various points all along the course they put a red mark on the steel rope to show where you should clip the carabiners.  Then there are blue marks to show you when you should use the flying fox.  The flying fox is used for sliding down the rope or traversing a horizontal section when there is nothing to stand on below.

We had to show that we were able to move safely along the mini course, before they would let us onto the main courses.  This part is really important, because there are no guides/ instructors on the course with you at Seilpark Kloten.  It is a course where you are responsible for your own safety.  Some of the highest parts of the black course are 15 metres above the ground and a fall could if you were unlucky kill you.  They do however have one or two instructors on the ground who can assist you if needed.

The golden rule is ALWAYS HAVE AT LEAST ONE CARABINER ATTACHED TO THE STEEL ROPE.  You do have to concentrate a little, as with constant clipping and unclipping it would be rather easy to become completely unclipped if you were not paying attention.

The adult courses at Seilpark Kloten are graded blue, red and black.  You must first start with the blue (easy) course.  If you complete that you can then move on to the red (medium) course.  Then finally if you complete that you can move on to the black (difficult) course.

One of my friends was with her child so she stayed on the childrens' course.  My other friend and I started with the blue, which we completed without any problem.  You do need some degree of balance but in terms of height, the blue course is only 3 to 5 metres above the ground and does not seem high.

Unfortunately my friend was not feeling well.  She had a headache and was feeling dizzy, so after the blue course she waited on the ground while I went to the red course.

The red course is 5 to 9 metres above the ground, so seems much higher.  It demands more balance than the blue one. It also includes some extremely cool games like a snowboard.  You need to clip onto the cage that houses the snowboard and then jump onto the snowboard and push off towards the other platform.  The course ends with something that forces you to put your trust in the equipment.  It is a machine that you clip on to, then you sit down on the platform and just push yourself off into thin air.  After a very brief fall, the machine releases a rope very slowly so that you have a controlled descent.  That first moment until you see that the machine is working is a little scary.

After finishing the red course I decided I would have a go at the black course.  It looked pretty high and goes up to 15 metres.  The course description says it is for 007s.  It demands a lot of power and endurance, and to even start it you have to climb vertically some metres up a rope, which has circular discs on it to make things even harder, since they get in the way.  After that you can rest briefly on a platform before the next test of strength.  You have to haul yourself up a kind of wooden ladder, but the distance between the rungs is huge and it is far from easy.  After that you have to traverse a set of monkey rings.  After finishing those my arms felt dead, but somehow I managed to muddle on through the rest of the course and finished it.  The black course also ends with the braking machine.

I got a huge sense of satisfaction from completing all the courses, and am keen to try something even tougher.  Now that I have my 007 status that is!

I definitely recommend Seilpark Kloten as a fun day out for all, provided you have at least some head for heights that is.

Laughing your way to better health with Laughter Yoga

Always wanting to try new and interesting things, this morning I took part in a laughter yoga workshop in Zurich.  The skies had been threatening to open up, but fortunately it stayed dry throughout the workshop, which took place outdoors, in front of the China garden down by the lake front.

In the words of the organiser:

Laughter Yoga is a unique concept where anyone can laugh for no reason, no jokes or comedy.
We do group laughter exercises and with eye contact the laughter gets contagious and real.
It is based on a scientific fact that the brain cannot differentiate between real or fake laughter, therefore the body gets the benefits anyway.
This concept was created by a Medical Dr. Madan Kataria in Mumbai, India with only 5 people, today you can find more than 1000 Laughter Yoga Clubs in more than 72 Countries.

Not only does it improve your mood, but laugher also strengthens your immune system and helps you connect easily with people.

Fifteen of us took part in the workshop and as is usually the case in Zurich the group was truly international with participants from Australia, UK, Russia, Czech Republic, Poland, Switzerland, Italy and Germany, as well as a significant number of Venezuelans (who were friends of the organiser).

We started off with a series of breathing and stretching exercises, which included blowing up balloons and blowing bubbles.  The idea with the bubbles was that whilst some members of the group blew bubbles up into the air, the rest tried to blow the bubbles downwards towards the ground.  It was like reverting back to childhood for a few minutes and was lots of fun.

Afterwards we moved on to the actual laughing exercises.  These involved chasing after each other whilst laughing, hugging other group members whilst laughing and many more activities (whilst laughing).  Each time we were told to maintain eye contact, as this keeps the group laughter going.  It must have been obvious that we were having a lot of fun, because a passer by actually wanted to come and join in with us, and in the true spirit of laughter yoga she was warmly welcomed into the group.  The other important point we were told is not to stand in a circle as that is too formal and tends to make people feel a little intimidated.  Instead we were always asked to form a kind of circle, but with some people inside to break the formality.

Like many other people, I am sometimes uncomfortable with laughing randomly or too loud, due to breaking a perceived social etiquette.  The workshop provided a comfortable environment where a really open group of people were able to open up and laugh uncontrollably without fear of being judged.

Laughter yoga is something I would be interested to try again, and the organiser Fabiola is so full of positive energy that you cannot help but want to be around her, smiling and laughing.  See here for more info.