Hormone Yoga GPBALANCE Retreat
Full
Program
This immersive week-long retreat will take place in a beautiful estate south of Carcassonne.
Accommodation in single (double or triple) rooms, all rooms have a bathroom and toilet.
Vegetarian meals prepared on site.
GPBALANCE is a method created by Gustavo Ponce (Chile) which is based on traditional yoga, honoring the Indian philosophical heritage, while proposing a modern and concrete method. This hormonal yoga technique will allow you to restore your vitality and naturally rebalance your hormonal health and/or that of your students/patients.
This event is available either for learning for a personal practice or because you wish to teach the method.
Personal practice
You are taking the course but you are not concerned by the modalities related to the training process for teaching. See below for the content of the face-to-face courses.
If you wish to train as a teacher
You are all welcome, yoga teachers, therapists, medical or paramedical professionals…etc. Your motivation is essential! The duration of your training will depend on your initial training in the practice of yoga but also in the theoretical foundations essential to the understanding and adequate transmission of yoga in general and GPBALANCE in particular.
It is however essential to participate in at least two complete sessions of 50H to dominate the technique and be able to teach it.
This training is designed to give you and/or validate your fundamental skills in the following areas
- Asana practice
- Pranayama
- Philosophy and history of yoga
- Anatomy and physiology (including the endocrine system)
- Subtle anatomy
This training will teach you to be kind to your body and mind, precise and attentive in your relationship to your body, focused on your breath, concerned for others as well as yourself.
The practical part of the training is generally organized in sessions of 50 hours over 7 days. Your presence at 2 sessions, that is to say 100H of practical training is, by experience, essential to successfully complete your learning and validate your evaluation.
As soon as the 7 days composed by a training session are completed, you are asked to practice, study and deepen the practical and theoretical aspects stated in the course. You will have at your disposal, as soon as your 50H course is over, the theoretical material and an essential bibliography, which will serve as a basis for this learning. This material will be enriched progressively by our care and will be available in unlimited. You will therefore have a regular and very accessible follow-up to support your learning. The entire teaching team will be readily available to help you and answer your questions throughout your preparation.
There is no time limit between the different sessions you wish to attend, nor when you wish to be evaluated. You can accumulate your training hours by attending the different GPBALANCE events offered in France or elsewhere.
Evaluation/diploma:
Follow your own pace, take the assessment when you are ready:
The practical and theoretical training will be finalized with the partial teaching of the series and will be evaluated by Gustavo during one of the sessions he will lead.
This evaluation will also include the theoretical aspects that you will have covered in class, but especially those acquired through the written materials that you will have for your personal work.
At the end of this evaluation, you may be asked to complete an additional training course if your knowledge, whether practical or theoretical, is insufficient to safely transmit the GPBALANCE technique to your students.
We believe that one year is a reasonable period of time between the time you complete your initial training and the final evaluation. This time will allow you to perfect your practice, your teaching and your theoretical learning. It is necessary for the internalization and the personal impregnation of the technique, its objectives, the feeling of the immediate and longer term effects of the postures and techniques used in the series. It is the only way to be able to transmit it with full knowledge of the facts and with efficiency for the practitioner.
Modalities to complete your training and validate your GPBALANCE teacher diploma which will allow you to be incorporated as an official teacher of the method on the GPBALANCE website as well as on the different social networks facilitating the divulgation of this method:
- Completion of the practical course: a minimum of 100 H (you can validate these hours in any country and access a validation of this course). It will also be possible to validate these hours during the video courses offered from time to time by Gustavo.
- Personal theoretical learning based on the didactic material that will be provided to you.
- Personal practice
- Teaching to small groups
- Face-to-face evaluation
- Validation of the diploma
At the end of this training, you will be able to teach hormonal yoga in a structured and creative way to your students or to pass on to students or patients the tools and techniques you will be given, adapting them to their physical and/or therapeutic context.
Theoretical aspects:
The working papers address, among others, the following topics:
- Endocrine system
- Breathing
- Pelvic floor
- Pineal gland
- Neo-Tummo
- Vagus nerve
- Bolt Score
- Thyroid
You will also have a bibliographic list of yoga essentials to get as well as the GPBALANCE books already published, of which you will have access to the PDF version (book 10: The method, book 4: The breath)
- When you register you must complete a health questionnaire, which will help you evaluate your health and follow its evolution as you incorporate the practice of GPBALANCE into your life routine. This questionnaire will also allow us to compile basic information on the symptoms observed among the students and to follow their evolution through statistical tools that we will share with you. These tools will allow you to communicate concretely about the method and will facilitate the promotion of your courses if you are a teacher.
- You can also learn a lot by teaching: you can start teaching in private lessons or in small groups in order to become familiar with the teaching of the practice. You will be asked to write a report noting perceived changes in yourself and your students.
Face-to-face course content:
Each session will systematically and progressively address the 5 sections of the GPBALANCE series:
The whole series uses different techniques and concepts that we will see in detail throughout the teaching:
- Asanas
- Mudras, in particular kechari Mudra (used throughout the practice)
- Kriyas
- Bandhas (very frequently used during the practice)
- Chakras and Prana
- Visualization and Concentration (very frequently used during the practice)
- Meditation
- Neo-Tummo
The 5 sections of GPBALANCE :
- Study of different breathing and postural techniques: Kaya Stairyam Sankalpa, Bija Mantras, Prana Vidya, Kapalabhati, Bhastrika 1, Bhastrika 2.
- Preparatory work of simple postures lying on the back, accompanied by visualizations and the different breathing techniques studied in the previous section, it allows essentially to mobilize the energy at the level of the pelvic region.
- Standing postures are designed to increase flexibility, strength, balance and agility of the whole body, and to mobilize energy in the whole body.
- In this section, the emphasis is on pressing the pubic bone to the floor and strengthening the central area of the body as well as the abdominal area. We will also perform a series of inverted postures.
- This last section done seated will cover different techniques such as Uddiyana Bandha, Agnisara Dhauti, Nauli, Ashwini Mudra, Nadi Shodhana Pranayama. The main objective of these techniques is to achieve a more intense rebalancing of the hormonal system than in the different techniques and asanas proposed in the previous sections. We end this last section of the practice with a brief contemplation (which includes your last Sankalpa), Neo-Tummo and Yoga Nidra.
All certified GPBALANCE teachers have the opportunity to train as GPBALANCE teacher trainers.
To do so, they will have to follow an additional course of 100 H after evaluation of their file by one of the training managers of the GPBALANCE team. Please contact us for more information.
Schedule
- Course schedule:
- - Arrival Friday: 18:00/20:00 (2H)
- - Saturday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:00/18:00 (6H30)
- - Sunday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:00/18:00 (6H30)
- - Monday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:30/18:00 (6H30)
- - Tuesday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:30/18:00 (6H30)
- - Wednesday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:30/18:00 (6H30)
- - Thursday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:30/18:00 (6H30)
- - Friday: 9:00/13:00 - 15:30/18:00 (6H30)
- - Saturday: 9:00/11:00 (2h)
Price
- Course: 1000€
- Students in training: - 10% off the course fee
- Accommodation full board: 700€
- Booking is required before April 1
- Minimum number of students: 10
- Maximum number of students: 15
Gustavo Ponce – Biography
Pioneer of yoga in Latin America, Gustavo Ponce, Chilean, born in 1947. Yoga teacher but also ex-Ambassador of Chile in Japan, international entrepreneur, writer, columnist in various international yoga magazines.
He speaks 6 languages (including French!) And has trained the majority of yoga teachers in Chile.
When he was 11, he found in a second-hand book store a book that made him dream and gave a definitive direction to the few years he had: “Yoga and Sport” by the Indian Selvarajan Yesudian and Hungarian Elizabeth Haich, the couple that opened the first Hatha Yoga school in Europe.
In early 1968 he left his country, Chile, by bus. In Argentina he boarded a cargo boat that left him in Kobe, Japan, 4 months later.
Japan, no doubt, left an indelible mark on him. He ows to this country almost everything he became afterwards. The reason that made him travel to Japan, the farthest most country from Chile, was his love for Japanese martial arts, which he started practicing with Japanese friends almost at the same time he began with yoga. When he arrived in 1968 with little knowledge of the language, zero English, just a bit of French which was useless, and without contacts or money, he tried desperately to find a job.
After that he did many jobs from teaching Spanish, to being an interpreter and translator Spanish-Japanese-Spanish and working in television, where he had his own program, a sort of late-night show.
He lived in Japan for a total of 20 years. He left and came back to the country of the Rising Sun many times. In 1971 Ihewent for the first time to Europe by boat and train all the way from Yokohama to Helsinki passing through the cold steppes of Russia, and Moscow. After many adventures in the old continent he returned in 1972 by land and sea from Italy to Japan. In India he made a stopover of 6 months: he found a beautiful family who adopted him and introduced him to the Theosophical Society of Madras, (Chennai), founded by Madame Helena Blavatsky in 1878, where he took his firsts formal yoga lessons.
In his early days, in an Aikido class he met who would be his first yoga teacher in Japan, Per Winther, a Norwegian yogi who had lived 17 years at the foot of the Himalayas. They became friends. He advised him to travel to India to deepen his studies with Shri Yogendra, a legend in India. At that time, in 1985, he was already working as commercial attaché at the Embassy of Chile.
When he was at the Ashram of Shri Yogendra, he heard for the first time about B.K.S. Iyengar, the lion of Pune, as people used to call him because he was very strict. he became very curious, so during his holidays the next year, he went to see him and became his pupil until 2000. A few years earlier he had
opened his own yoga center in Chile, Yogashala, where he was the first person to teach the Iyengar method in Chile.
While he was a student of Mr. Iyengar, he heard about Pattabhi Jois and his method, Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Of course, he went to see him and became also his student in 1992. Along with Iyengar Yoga, he taught a few years later, Ashtanga Vinyasa in his school in Chile, introducing this method in his country.
In 1987 he became Ambassador of Chile to Japan. His new position allowed him to travel more around the world, and of course to India. He held this position until March 1990, when he decided that he wanted to explore new horizons and returned to Europe to work as CEO of a multinational company in Belgium.
From Belgium it was rather easy to travel to India where the company had two offices and its personnel at his disposal. He continued attending the Iyengar and Jois schools, but also went to visit the Yoga Mandir, the school of T. Krishnamacharya and his son Desikachar in Chennai (Madras).
As the company had an office in Calcutta, every time he went, he paid a visit to Mother Theresa, a real Karma yogini.
Throughout the years he kept going to India and met many masters, unfortunately unknown in the west, and perhaps it is better they stay unknown, because fame can destabilize anyone.
While setting back in Chile and putting in motion both his school Yogashala (www.yogashala.cl) and Canal Om (www.canalom.cl), the retreat center, he was diagnosed with a Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a very aggressive type of cancer to the immune system, in 2003. He was given just a few more years to live. During the 8 months that lasted the chemotherapy he began to put together a system of yoga to energize the body and mind, Prana Shakti, the original foundation of GPBALANCE.
From 2007 he began to develop and teach his own yoga methods based on the teachings of all my masters. First, he developed his own vision of Iyengar Yoga: Axis Yoga; then Dynamic, a softer version of Ashtanga Vinyasa, Sattva Yoga and original sequence of 60 postures done with the wall (Chikitsa) and the same 60 postures done in a flowing manner (Vinyasa). This method has become very popular in Brazil where he has formed many teachers.
He wrote in total 17 books so far, mostly on yoga.
Frédérique Verdeau – Biography
After 20 years expatriated to London and Chile and numerous trips around the world, Frédérique moved to Aix-en-Provence in 2007 and a few years later founded Aix Yoga Center, a multidisciplinary yoga school. In 2014, she continued her yoga dissemination activity by organizing numerous yoga-related events: courses and training.
She started practicing yoga in 2000 and followed numerous trainings, internships with great teachers from around the world.
“Yoga, as some human encounters may have been in my life, has clearly given me a path that has allowed me to build myself. I would now like to be able to communicate to others, tools that give meaning to their own human research, I wish to transmit techniques and tools to allow you to take charge, independently, of your body, your mind, your energy and your health. “
The discovery of GPBalance a few years ago echoed my needs, my intuition, and that is what motivated me to do this teacher training in order to share it in my turn. The holistic work proposed by this technique makes all the more sense in the current context: the method offers a systemized and effective way to rebalance your hormonal level, stimulate the immune system, decrease stress and therefore prepare us for a more balanced life, healthy and serene.
The series is accessible to everyone, women and men and easily adapts to your physical level.
Fanny Lehideux – Biography
Fanny has a life rich in travel and encounters. Between France, Belgium, Argentina, it is in Chile and Brazil that she met Gustavo Ponce, with all his life of Yoga and other richeness, himself a student of B.K.S Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois and T.K.V. Desikachar and there a light went on and it is him that she chooses to train as a teacher, while she has been practicing yoga since her childhood!
Through the different methods developed by Gustavo, syntheses of the different integrated methods of Hatha Yoga, she discovers the richness of experience, flexibility and freedom, adaptation and accuracy, precision, knowledge and balance!
Today, Fanny teaches 3 of his methods which represent for her the main tools we need to feel in a healthy and balanced body.
“As a teenager I did not know that Yoga would become the common thread and the oxygen of all my life!
I have always been in search of the natural and the right, both in the way of being, a philosophy of life but also an objective of consumption.
Yoga has become a passion and a way of sharing it and transmitting this tool to those who are interested and who need it. “
In difficult times Hatha Yoga has helped me breathe, focus on the essentials and get me back on my feet. In the good times it allows me to maintain balance and stay centered while keeping a body full of vitality, good health and an open and calm mind. “
About GPBalance Hormonal Yoga
GPBALANCE is a therapeutic method developed by Gustavo Ponce with the essential objective of reactivating and rebalancing the hormonal level of our body!
The main action consists of stimulating the immune system, thus participating in the resolution of the problems and side effects associated with menopause, andropause, stress and various physiological dysfunctions impacting the hormonal system.
The result is a stimulation of fertility, sexual activity, reduced stress; helping accordingly with other hormone-dependent disorders. The series is accessible to all, women and men, and easily adapts to your physical level. GPBalance offers techniques and tools to help you take charge of your body, mind, spirit, energy and health.
“Balance is the ultimate state of well-being, where everything is perfectly aligned and functioning perfectly. In our chaotic lives, balance can seem like a totally unattainable goal, or at least one that requires profound change. Once you learn to balance with GPBALANCE, it is a free, easy, complete, and definitive path to improving hormone health and lasting vitality. “
GPBALANCE acts on the whole body: From a physical point of view, exercise improves balance, posture, flexibility and mobility. It strengthens and tones muscles and bones. However, its most particular effectiveness is the extraordinary increase in energy levels and vitality due to the reactivation of the endocrine system and sex glands. Regular practice helps us protect ourselves against infections and illnesses caused by a weakened immune system. It helps women in difficulty conceive by freeing the mind: less stress, anxiety and depression. It provides better sleep and emotional stability. It gives us energy and mental clarity.
GPBALANCE is based on a proven scientific basis, but for it to work it is necessary to reduce stress levels as much as possible. In other words, the level of cortisol. GPBALANCE can be combined with other types of exercise such as swimming or weight training. Yoga is not about what you do, but how you do what you do. It is suggested that people who are serious about practicing GPBALANCE for, say three months, have the following blood tests before and after starting the practice. Men should normally take a full testosterone exam (ideally free and bioavailable) and a SHBG exam. For women, testing for estradiol and progesterone is recommended. For both men and women, 24-hour urine FSH, LH, ACTH, TSH, and cortisol tests are recommended. This is a clear way to show you the benefits of the method.