Deborah York, the original yoga instructor at our VisionForce Boot Camps and in many ways a “mother” and co-creator of the VisionForce work, will be introducing a new addition to our Boot Camps: Breath and Body Foundation – a 3-hour yoga workshop on the first day, prior to the evening Reception and Orientation sessions.

For years now, Deborah has been standing for deeper integration of mind, body and spirit inside our trainings. She sees how much more present and open participants are able to be, once they first establish a powerful relationship with their body, posture, emotions and breathing.

The entire Breath and Body Foundation workshop is available (yet optional) for everyone, without an additional charge, and is highly recommended.

Participants will learn and practice:

1. The Ujjai Breath – Learn how to control your life force by bringing more oxygen into your body on the inhalations and increasing your circulation in a way that purifies your body by breathing out toxins and stress. Learn to use this form of breathing to experience a profound sense of peace, clarity of thinking and alertness. You’ll feel more alive, energized and youthful–perhaps even blissful.

2. The Breath of Fire – How to use this form of breathing to move beyond the mental and physical resistance and tension brought on by pain or discomfort. This is also a tool to increase your energy and clear your mind.

3. Powerful Posture – How we stand and sit has a direct effect on our energy and the way we feel about ourselves. Practice ways of standing and sitting that generate new levels of confidence and power. Posture also effects your body’s ability to have all the organs work at their maximum efficiency, and prevents you from becoming tired during hours of sitting at the Boot Camp. With good posture habits, you stay younger and healthier.

4. Proper Alignment – Learning proper alignment for each of the yoga poses has your practice be more effective and transformative. Most importantly, proper alignment ensures safety. You will experience the power of each pose as your bones and muscles are in their natural alignment, freeing up any blocks that could be preventing your life force from circulating throughout your body.

5. Personal Modifications – We will be able to address any specific needs or limitations that you may have and show you modifications that has your practice be more fun and effective and safe.

6. What Is Yoga? Look at what yoga is and what yoga is not. Discover yoga as a way of honoring the body as a temple. Learn how to nurture, trust and listen to your body’s wisdom.

7. Yoga As Metaphor Who we are being on the mat can be a way of reflecting how we show up in our lives and in our relationships with self and others.

8. How To Witness Yoga enhances your ability to concentrate and focus on one thing at a time. You will learn how to be more present in the moment, and how to witness your thoughts, feelings and emotions without judging them. Learn what it means to physically and metaphorically open your heart to compassion, acceptance and willingness to respond to the call to honor your highest values in the moment.

9. Yoga As Meditation – Yoga awakens you to higher guidance and/or intuition. Your emotions calm as the chatter of the mind slows, permitting greater insight and discernment.

10. The Mind-Body-Spirit Connection You will experience yoga as a means to feel connected with your body, mind and spirit. You you feel more whole, complete, peaceful and contented.

Yoga and conscious breathing is also practiced for the next three mornings, and to a lesser extent in the next three afternoons. Yoga is an integral part of the VisionForce Boot Camp experience for conscious leaders who are up to creating positive change in the world.

Visionaries and entrepreneurs are often fiercely independent, very self-reliant and uncompromising in their thinking and their lives. A major characteristic of the VisionForce work is how it powerfully restores and builds more of our natural autonomy in thought and action—a great value in a world that still conditions us to follow and conform in so many ways. Thought leaders such as Ayn Rand, individualist extraordinaire, were instrumental in restoring my own sense of power in my 20s, and my faith in our potential to live as visionary creators.

While the VisionForce work is so powerful for relationships, having been started largely from working to bring my own family back together, in many ways I have been a life-long loner and individualist. That mentality has in many ways suited me well in the research and development of this work, I suppose, but it has been a huge liability in my thinking since starting the VisionForce business.

Many of our Boot Camp graduates have been encouraging us to focus locally in Austin, rather than focus globally through the internet, as we have primarily been doing. Only recently and gradually have I been heeding that advice. Earlier this year, I was stunned to learn of two visionary organizations that are building amazing communities for entrepreneurs right here in Austin (FLOW and Bootstrap).

It was at a FLOW meeting that I met a visionary Austin woman named Brandi Clark. Brandi, head of the Austin Eco-Network. Brandi attended our last Boot Camp, and could not believe that most people in Austin did not know about us, or that we were not an integral part of the other communities and organizations here. She has since joined our staff, committed help us take our business to the next level locally over the next 4 months.

Through Brandi, I’ve finally begun to get to know this great town. I’ve lived in Austin 15 years now, and always considered it a special place, but only recently have I considered Austin “my community.”

Over the last few weeks, I had the fortune of learning about three other local Austin organizations that are doing great things for Austin entrepreneurs: Big Austin, the Austin Independent Business Alliance and American YouthWorks.

Austin seems to be emerging as a perfect breeding ground for entrepreneurs and visionaries. There’s nowhere we’d rather be.

At one of our Boot Camps for world changers in 2004, a young Turkish man realized he stood for social justice. He would go on to describe it as far more than an intellectual insight–it was a deeply emotional, physical and spiritual realization for him. Through his being, he felt called to stand for social justice, and a vision was born.

Within months after that event, he founded 20/20 MultiMedia and began sharing his vision for giving a voice to conscious hip hop artists, who could use their medium for positive change. A few years later, a feature-length documentary starring some of the biggest names in hip hop is about to be released internationally–it’s a visionary film with a powerful message and a call for hip hop artists to stand and own their power to bring about positive change.

This man’s name is Emjed Hammas, his company is 20/20 MultiMedia, and his film is Business As Usual: The Exploitation of Hip Hop. Check out his web site here: www.2020multimedia.net The trailer for the documentary can be found under ‘Projects.’

Positive revolutionaries, authors, musicians, change agents, educators, artists, activists, entrepreneurs, parents, students, CEOs–those who attend Boot Camp tend to become so deeply connected to their values, that they take a stand for what matters most. And a vision is born–a vision, which calls them into heroic action, a vision which demands their personal evolution. They become shaped by their stand and their vision, and their relationships, companies and communities are transformed.

The world needs visionaries now. VisionForce, through our One Million Visionaries campaign, is searching for the most impassioned, conscious agents of change we can find to attend our upcoming “boot camp for world changers” in Austin, TX, July 18-22. Those who are ready to face everything and avoid nothing to stand for humanity for 5 days should apply.

Scholarships are available through our portal on Zaadz.

Here is the first of several videos we’ll be sharing from the March 2007 VisionForce Boot Camp.

The application process for the July 18-22 VisionForce Boot Camp has just opened. Those whose complete applications are accepted by the Early Application Deadline of May 14 may save $300 on registration.

Many visionary Zaadzsters showed up to our March 2007 Vision Force Boot Camp for visionary change agents to kick start our One Million Visionaries campaign!  Pictured above are some of the crew.  (notice the Zaadz Tees being sported by Keith, Mary and Ronin. 

Other Zaadzsters pictured are Deborah, Joseph, Jordan, Shawn, Audrey, Carl, Brandi, Michael, John, Jim, Tom, Koray, Margalo, OT, myself, and… who am I missing?

Zaadzsters in attendance not pictured include Michael, …

For more photos from this Boot Camp, go here.

MP3 File

I sat down with local visionary entrepreneur and founder of the Bootstrap Network, Bijoy Goswami, to discuss his revolutionary ideas about starting a venture. The insights revealed in this audio are valuable for the entrepreneur, social entrepreneur, non-profit leader and more.

He boils down the entrepreneurial process to get at the essence of what great entrepreneurs have been doing–whether they realize it or not.

You'll want to give yourself time to listen to the full thing. It's about an hour.

Bijoy has an on-line bootcamp for bootstrappers that you can check out here. I think it's invaluable and it's the next best thing to living here in Austin and getting him to consult with you in person. I recommend it to anyone starting or building a business or organization.