Bouke is one of the great examples that yogaSOMATICS & Somatic Bodywork is for all HUMANS (not only women!) . . . he is a yogaSOMATICS Teacher - yogaSOMATICS RESTORATIVE Teacher and Somatic Bodyworker.
FROM NETHERLANDS TO NORWAY
Hi, my name is Bouke Bouman and I’m born and grew up in the South of the Netherlands. We lived in a big house with a big garden and a small forest just around the corner. I was always playing outside; building huts, digging pits, making fires, looking at insects, looking at flowers and all the other things there was to see.
In my teenage years I discovered that I liked camping and hiking and over a period of many years this developed to be my main hobby and I really didn’t do anything else my spare time while I studied to become a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering.
In mid-twenties I met the woman who is now my wife, and fortunately she also wanted to spend as much time in nature as possible. Together, we started to practice Hatha yoga, for relaxation of the joints and muscles.
In 2002 a possibility emerged to move to Norway, and we happily grabbed this opportunity; so, in the beginning of 2003 we moved from the crowded and flat Netherlands to the uninhabited and mountainous Norway. After about 5 years of moving around and working here and there in Norway, we found a small farm in the South of Norway in 2007
And then YOGA came more into my LIFE
In 2012, yoga made her reappearance into our lives in a more prominent way. My wife had educated herself to become a certified yoga teacher, with lines into Iyengar and Hatha Yoga and started to give some classes in our small village.
In 2013, a yoga friend introduced us to the Oslo Yoga Festival. It is here we met Ateeka for the first time, when we joined her Somatic Bodywork / ConsciousTouch Workshop. This was a totally new approach to yoga and bodywork, which was far away from my normal view of yoga, but my body accepted it fully.
It was even so inspiring that we joined another Somatic Bodywork /Conscious Touch Workshop at the Oslo Yoga Festival in 2014 and in March, the same year, we travelled with Ateeka to BUDAPEST for a deeper dive into this practice . . . in a weekend Somatic Bodywork and Aq ua-Yoga-Soma immersion. It was here that we experienced Aqua-Yoga-Soma and Watsu in the warm waters one of Budapests many public thermal baths. An unforgettable experience!!
A TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT in 2015
2015 was the year that my life started to transform, and is often the case with transformations . . . life first turns itself inward to a very dark place.
It started in February of that year when I let my dogs out on an icy Saturday night; a night where the snow had melted during the day and turned to a thin layer of ice in the evening. One of the dogs was an energetic mixture of Border Collie and Norwegian Moose Dog and she wanted to investigate some places which I hadn’t anticipated. So, in her enthusiasm so run a head of me and I was dragged backwards off my feet and landed, head first, on the ice.
This was the beginning of a very troublesome year. I developed Tinnitus the first night and that didn’t go away; I started to get headaches after a few hours of working; walking was not fun anymore, since every step felt as if someone stabbed a something into my head; I generally was not enjoying life anymore more, since everything I did resulted in feeling my body in a way I never had felt. The visits to a physiotherapist and a chiropractor didn’t really help in the long run. And so life continued, until…
And so life continued… until the end of 2015. I got an email from Ateeka about a Restorative Yoga teacher training in Oslo over 5 days. This email really resonated with me in a certain way, and I knew that I had to join this training.
So, I joined the training in the beginning of 2016. And, I really can’t say anything else than that this was a life changer!!
I was introduced to exercises that really relaxed my nervous system and I could for the first time relax my body and it was just amazing. After these 5 days, of literally “doing nothing”, all my health issues were gone for a few months. No Tinnitus and Headaches anymore. I really hadn’t expected that this training would resonate so deeply in me, and I wanted to explore more of this approach to yoga. So, this training paved the road to join the yogaSOMATICS Teacher Training in Copenhagen in 2017.
It was so inspiring meeting so many different people, with so many different backgrounds, all being attracted to this approach of yoga, I was such a great journey. After finishing the yogaSOMATICS Teacher training in 2018 the step to start with the Somatic Bodywork Practitioner Training was obvious. So, my wife and I decided to join this training in Århus starting in June 2019.
Somatic Bodywork is the most sacred and genuine practice I have joined. It’s so deeply connected to the most elementary gestures humans have and in the most natural way to be with each other. It is in this practice that I can find myself, again and again.
HOW I PRACTICE TODAY
My yoga practice today . . . while the rhythm of a daily practice changes from period to period, I do find that many of the nervous resets are part of my daily life, such as: Baby Cartoon Mouth, the Nomadic Rock, relaxing of the eye muscles etc. These have become a piece of my daily life.
AND OTHER THINGS THAT YOU LOVE and ENJOY?
Other things I love… enjoying nature is still a big part of my life. Spending a night or two in the mountains after paddling a few hours with our canoe is still the most enjoyable way of recharging our batteries. Further I’m still a practical person, so I really like building things, both inside and outside. Last winter the bathroom got a total makeover, where I did a lot of the work. Just love it.
Further I am an active member of the Red Cross in our village and spending some time every year in participating.
HOW CAN WE FIND YOU and YOUR OFFERINGS?
Possibility for ordering Somatic Bodywork and joining yogaSomatics Classes are found on the following Facebook site of Merleyn: https://www.facebook.com/GalleriogYogaskole