Trekking to Everest Base camp and yoga in Mosman have more in common than you might have realized. Belinda Gurd, a student at Adore Yoga, recently embarked on the biggest challenge of her life when she trekked to Everest Base camp and yoga played a key role in making it up the mountain.
Mosman based Belinda, 31, has had a truly transformational year. From desk-bound office worker to mountain-climbing yogi, Belinda’s story is inspirational. But why trek to Everest Base Camp?
“I visited Nepal a few years back and went on a 5 day walk through the Annapurna region,” Belinda explains when I met her for coffee this week. “One day I was sitting having tea and I met three girls who were trekking to Base Camp that week. I decided then and there that if they could do it, so could I.” But it took a while for that conviction to become reality. What propelled Belinda to take up the challenge, several years after her first taste of the Himalayas?
“This year I went through a lot of change in my life and I needed a goal to focus on.” In fact, Belinda’s self esteem took a nose dive earlier this year when her relationship of seven years came to an end. Usually a bubbly, outgoing woman, the break up of her relationship left Belinda in crisis and following her dream of trekking to Everest Base Camp seemed like the ideal way to re-focus her energy.
“I threw myself into a full-on training schedule, including weight training, running, strength work, sessions in an altitude training gym and 5 hour walks in the Blue Mountains,” says Belinda. She believes that yoga also played a pivotal role, both during training and on the trek itself.
“Yoga helped me to fix my posture, train my breath and focus my mind’ Belinda explains. “I kept thinking about my yoga classes when I was on the trek. I’d been in challenging postures and I knew I could do them. I just went back to that mindset. I’d listen to my teacher in my mind and it helped me get through the tough times because I knew I could do it.”
Focusing on the breath was one of the many yoga skills that helped her on the trek. “All you do is think, walk and breath. Breathing is very important at altitude and, like yoga, you need to keep a continuous breath at the same pace.”
Belinda’s experience of being on the mountain had many unexpected parallels with her regular Saturday morning yoga.
“Saturday mornings at yoga were like a refuge for me. That’s why it’s so addictive, I want to feel like that all the time.” Being on the mountain gave Belinda that same feeling of balance and perspective. “I love knowing that place of stillness, focus and clarity is always within me and I am able to achieve that and go back to that. Hopefully I’ll be able to integrate that into my everyday life.”
It wasn’t just the breath and mental focus that made yoga such an important part of the trek for Belinda. She practiced yoga poses every day and believes it made all the difference to her physical performance.
“Every night I did yoga stretches, lots of child pose and down dog. In the mornings I did a full routine that I’d learned at Adore Yoga. I didn’t get sore at all. No lactic acid build up, nothing. I didn’t feel like I’d been walking for 5 hours. The yoga made a big difference.”
Ask Belinda what she’s learned from her trek to Everest Base Camp and she says, “The world, life and the universe is so much bigger than what we make it.” And she’s bringing the lessons she learned on the mountain back home to her busy Sydney life. “When I first got back from Nepal, I had a really overwhelming week. But I found I could go back to the moment on the mountain when I stopped, breathed and just was. I can still reference that.”
Belinda’s not the only one who has benefited from her trek. “I decided to raise money for charity. I work closely with Oasis Youth Support Network and managed to raise 3k for them, which I'm stoked with.” As a regular volunteer with this Salvation Army youth homelessness initiative, Belinda’s now sharing what she learned on her trek with some of the youngsters she meets there. “I sent photo’s (from Everest) to the kids at the Salvo’s to show them anything’s possible. You just need focus. When you can focus, you have more self discipline and can achieve anything” she says, echoing Patanjali’s famous yoga sutras, extolling the importance of stilling and focusing the mind.
So, what’s next for Belinda? “Kokoda, Kilimanjaro or maybe a marathon. I’d love to do a marathon,” she answers. It looks like her Everest Base camp trek has given her a sense of adventure that is going to be supported by her yoga practice for years to come.
Many thanks to Belinda Gurd for sharing her story.
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