Dear friends and colleagues of the Breathworks community around the world; I am writing to you from Valencia, Spain about our first ever 'Spanish Breathworks Teacher Training' retreat held towards the end of last year at 'Spanish Respira Vida'.

It has been a very exciting journey so far and, as often happens when doing pioneering work far away, there has been an amazing learning curve with a lot of effort but also inspiring with a kind of mystery of the unknown. Key to this development in Spain has been the enthusiastic support and help of Adolf (our first homegrown BW teacher in Spain). Additionally, the experience and confidence I gained from supporting and co-leading several times, over the last two years, at the teacher training retreats in Taraloka, has made me so grateful to the teacher training team in Manchester; Ratnaguna, Singhashri, Dayavajri, Cate, Sona and Vidyamala, for all their support and encouragement.

Right now there are eleven e-students from so many parts of the latin world who are benefiting from being able to take part in this teacher training in Spanish, we have students from México, Brazil and all over Spain.

Feedback from Lauren a Cuban student that lives in Ibiza: "As for the retreat it was a wonderful way of putting into practice once again the teachings, but this time supported by the energy of the group and surrounded by the beauty and peace of the Valencian mountains. I'm very grateful to Dharmakirti, Vidyamala and the whole Respiravida Breathworks team for creating this program and supporting the students in every step of the path."

More feedback, Kate from Madrid, says "A golden opportunity! ... the week's training retreat (tt2, called phase II in Spain) as the most intensive experience so far. Here, the emphasis, as well as deepening our personal practice of mindfulness, was on considering and practising ways of communicating mindfulness to others as future teachers of the RespiraVida Breathworks approach. This involved enhancing skills of all kinds and took place in a warm, supportive atmosphere which encouraged valuable peer feedback on short periods of practice. It was an international group, too, which opened up many new perspectives on communication. Phase II also enabled me to understand better the overall aims of RespiraVida Breathworks and the shared vision and values underpinning the methods used on the programme – vision and values to be passed on to those we eventually will come to teach.

The week's retreat was well-planned and organised, with a balanced programme including presentations, revision, discussion, reflection and plenty of practice. I came away with a strong sense of the solidity and sustainability of the RespiraVida Breathworks approach as well as a firmer feeling for the integration between my personal mindfulness practice and the skills needed to pass this on effectively in teaching the programme. I'm very much looking forward to the final training retreat in Phase III (tt3), and feel enormously grateful to those in RespiraVida Breathworks who have spent so much time, energy and thought in planning and running the programme."

We look forward to May next year when the first book of Vidyamala will be published in Spanish language. Most of the people get to know about Respira Vida Breathworks in Spain through word of mouth or Respira Vida website, we still have not been able to invest much in publicity but nonetheless there is so much interest and it´s such an exciting time for us,

Next January there will be trainees in México, Madrid, Barcelona, Alicante, Valencia, etc running their "practice course" we are hoping that this will be a fantastic opportunity become more visible and so more people will be able to make connection with the unique approach and spirit of Breathworks and and the inspiring work of Breathworks founder, Vidyamala, Ratnaguna and Sona and the so many other people that wholeheartedly support this work.