Fleur van Zonneveld

THE EXPERIENCE OF YOGA

When I look back, training as a dancer was the perfect gateway to the experience of using the body and all it’s qualities in order to realize the wholeness of my being. For me, yoga is the adventure of a life time. Sharing the never-ending study of yoga is my passion. After more than 10 years of teaching, it still makes my heart jump every day. Through my personal approach of yoga, I feel that yoga is not something you ‘do’. It’s something that you experience. It’s not at all about getting in to a handstand or getting your downdog perfect. Altough those things might happen along the way;), yoga is not about getting anywhere. According to yoga, you are already there. Exactly where you are supposted to be. The question is, are you present? Are you present in yourself, right now? Are you aware of what you do and why? Are you observing? Or simply following and doing what you think you should do. For me yoga is about investigating all of these questions. It’s like  being on a date with yourself.  Once you start to practice being with yourself, being honest with yourself and truly listening to yourself within a safe space, you will organically do the same in your everyday life.

YOGA AS A JOURNEY THROUGH LIFE

In a yoga class, you will encounter all things you experience in life. Easy stuff. Hard stuff. A challange, a rest.  You will find yourself balancing and sometimes falling. But these are only trials. Trials that mimic life and enable you to practice. How do you stay true to yourself in the midst of all of that? Not doing too little, but also not doing more than you can. Both ways inhibit yourself and are decisions of the mind. So, this brings us to the big question! How do you know where you should be? How do you know if you are going too far or not far enough? In my classes, we focus on feeling and experiencing yoga rather than doing it.  The moment you make the change from ‘doing’ towards ‘feeling’, it’s easier to find out where you actually need to be.

creating space by letting go

In my experience it helps to stop looking for things. Stop looking for stillness or the perfect performance of a physical pose. Rather, it is to drop things. First Simple things like: dropping your shoulders, drop your jaw (you can do that right now!),drop that one thought that’s in your head all day long. Along the way you might let go of some habits, some patterns or ideas that aren’t so helpful anymore. 

The more you let go, the clearer you can see, feel and experience what is really there. It’s a bit like tidying up your house. In that process of tidying up, at first you meet a lot of rubbish, but along the way you realize how much space there actually is.  And In this self-created space, the body feels light. The mind becomes still.  This moment is balance. This moment is Yoga. If you can experience this balanced space within a yoga class, you can experience it in your daily life as well.

LET’S TRAVEL TOGETHER

In every yoga class, I create a safe space and scenery for you to go on your own  little journey. Meet with yourself. Be with yourself.  From there we create a bridge towards everyday life, so life can be experienced in a more conscious way. You can experience yoga with me in many forms. In my Vinyasa classes, we move and flow just as the breath does; just as life does. When it’s time to rest, we can meet in my Restorative or yoga Nidra classes. Whether you choose a moving or a still practice, the intention remains the same: Drop the doing so you can start the listening.

Like any proper adventure, it’s the people you meet who play a big part. Along my yoga journey, I have been guided and inspired by many amazing people: Gosta and Patrick, Tonnie Goes, Ana Forrest, Clive Sheridan, Julie Martin, Emil Wendell, Katchie Ananda, Kamini Desai, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and more.