International Breathwork Foundation Features Breath of Bliss and Breathfest in Newsletter

What an honor to be featured in the International Breath Foundation April 2017 newsletter! A report Ana Berenguer.

"This year was the 10th anniversary of the Bali Spirit Festival (BSF). The organisers Meghan Pappenheim, Kadek Gunarta and Robert Weber started the project in 2008 when tourism in Bali was devastated because of the bombings in 2002 and 2005. But they still believed in the potential of the island. Their passion for yoga, dance and music made them put together this event that now gathers thousands of people from all over the world."

BSF is a celebration of yoga, dance, music and healing. First class professionals from the five continents come together to enjoy and share diversity. Many types of yoga are represented. Dance, martial arts and healing music events are going on all day long. Many healers offer private sessions at the venue. There are activities for kids and family. The music program is huge. There is live music all day at Coco Stage. At night this year there were two separate events. Bhakti Nights offered devotional music and dance and One World One Stage presented awesome musicians from Australia, Bali, Senegal, India, Borneo, New York and many other places.

Over the years Breathwork has also become one of the highlights of the event. Some of the main professional breathworkers facilitated sessions of different styles of Breathwork to hundreds of yogis, dancers and musicians, many of them new to Breathwork. This year’s representatives were Lena Kristina Tuulse from the Swedish Breathwork Institute, Dana DeLong and Ashanna Solaris from Clarity Breathwork, Cristabel Zamor from Breath of Bliss, Anthony Abbagnano from Alchemy of Breath, Richard Bock from Quantum Light Breath and Giten Tonkov from BioDynamic Breath. A devoted team of “angels” dressed in white supported all of them.

On the first day of the BSF, some of the breathworkers got together to offer a Breathing Mandala with more than 100 breathers. They made two big circles with the same amount of people standing facing each other. First they helped each other to sit down. Then they took 3 deep breaths together through the mouth with their eyes closed and 3 deep breaths looking into each other’s eyes. After that both of them would say out loud: I love you, thank you, I honour you and I let you go. Then the outer circle moved to the next person to the left and did the same all over again. Meanwhile, the breathworkers repeated inspirational words and played emotive music. The results were very touching. The participants loved the practice and many of them came back the next days for more Breathwork. BSF is an amazing opportunity to promote and expand Breathwork.

Breathfest

This year, for the first time, Cristabel Zamor organized a BreathFest on the 25th of March, with the support of BSF. A day-long micro-festival with shamanic, taoist, shaking and tantric practices guided by the Breath of Bliss Academy team of faculty and graduates. During lunchtime a very interesting panel discussion took place with all the breathworkers that participated in BSF plus Amara Samata, a long-term breathworker based in Ubud. They all shared their knowledge, feelings and visions about breathwork. The discussion will be transcribed in upcoming newsletters.

Cristabel’s vision is to make BreathFest a mobile, global, traveling Breathwork Festival as a one day immersion that can take place by itself or together with any other major festival around the globe."