Opposites attract

Mo:


There was a great opportunity to stay on in Stockholm yesterday for the BIG P.A.R.T.Y night.

I choose to go home to P instead. Had a quiet, lovely evening at home and spent the day racing around the forest picking mushrooms...

Bliss.

Let´s just say: Chantarelles on toast in my house tonight...

Super Saturday 30 august, Stockholm, Sweden

Mo:

Back from Super Saturday.
I had a nice time - thanks to everyone who came and kicked ass in my cycling class!

The Les Mills-machine is impressive. The way that they package their programs is second to none. It´s no secret how they manage to entice the industry to follow their products year after year - it´s all in the branding and in the culture they´ve managed to build around the "Les Mills-family".

It´s also easy to see why Les Mills are particularly strong in Sweden. The Swedish trainer team have more strong/professional Les Mills presenters than any other country I´ve visited. Many of them are "stars" in their own right, i.e. Petter, Fredrik, Charlotte, Anna P, Katarina Å, Åsa F, Dorotka, Oscar and of course our very own JO.

Thinking about it, it´s amazing how Les Mills has managed to attract and keep so many great names, especially since what the trainers are really asked to do, is to push somebody else´s product. Cred to Jesper at Les Mills Scandinavia/Balticum who is the one responsible for handpicking such a great team.

So, were any of my prejudices about a Les Mills-event true???

Yes.

This is part of a conversation that I overheard in the Presenter´s room - names have been withdrawn to protect the innocent....
Person 1: "..Man, I´ve stayed off the lollies for 9 days to look good for this event!!!"
Person 2: "I couldn´t say I have today...look, there´s hardly any candy left - and I think I´ve eaten half the bowl!" Points at half eaten candy bowl. (It´s one of life´s great mysteries why there always have to be candy bowls present in Presenter rooms in Sweden)
Person 1: (obviously not listening to person 2)"...but I couldn´t say that what I´ve drunk during the last couple of weeks have been very helpful!..." Big rounds of laughter.
Person 2:"I remember before the World´s...it was crazy!...pushin´n´kickin´ myself into shape!"
Person 1:"...Great PARTY tonight! I´ll finish my last class and have a beer!!!"

What has also come to my knowledge in the last few days, is that 1 person in the Swedish presenter team (no names, I said!) went on a "diuretic diet" 1 week before the S-S event. Which meant that last Sunday this person tried to consume gimongus amounts of water, before "starving" the body of liquids for God knows how long. Why? To look harder and more ripped for today. Of course.

Prejudice 1: You want to be in the LM-team? You´d better know how to looked ripped on stage. At all costs.

Prejudice 2: You want to be in the LM-team? You work hard - and you play even harder.

I´m obviously too old, too tired and too boring to be part of the family.
But I had a great time at the family do! Thanks for inviting me.

Body Jam gets hall 1 groovin´

My AWFUL packing style close up. Yes, it´s really that bad still.


Terese Alvén, famous blogger-friend (from Veckorevyn) and I, right before my class.

JO´s hand joining the Body Attack class! I promised John that the next event that we both teach at, he will come to my spinning class and I will...go to his Body Attack. Let´s just say: I draw the short straw...

MOJO Super Saturday style...please note: picture taken straight after our classes!

Dan Cohen (Body Combat) & "Dr Dave" (Body Balance) hangin´ after class.

"Eloine" striking a pose during Niklas Liljesand´s "Freestyle"-dance class...
We had SO much FUN!

Let´s just say that this pose was NOT a part of Niklas class....

Getting CHARGED!

Mo:

Bags are packed and I´m ready to go.

Les Mills Super Saturday 2008 - here I come! :)

Barely alive…

I am still here on this planet; it is just that lately I have been doing some HARD working!!

After a weekend with MAGSJUKA, I made it home to Gothenburg.

Monday: Teaching 2 classes, barely surviving!

Tuesday: Feeling a bit better but OVER DID IT! Teaching CORE 45min, rehearsing Bodyjam 120min, teaching at BalettAkademin 3hours, teaching a BodyCombat/BodyBalance Challenge outdoors class 90min! Even the fact that I was thinking of going to Muay Thai after that pretty much reveals some of my “issues” (I don’t like missing out on things!!!!).

Wednesday: Teaching Yoga60min, Yoga90min, rehearsing + teaching BodyJam New release 120min, running to meet MO at Vasaplatsen (had about 0min to get from A to B) only to find out that the classes I am attending are NOT 30min long, but in total close to 2hours! And I don’t even do SPINNING!!!! Good thing MO is soo good looking ;)
Thursday: Teaching Yoga, train to Sthlm and I thought; well, can’t just sit around, I have two hours to kill so why not go to Bikram Yoga?! I have done this type of yoga before but tonight was NOT my night! Let me tell you why:

1: Yes, perhaps I was a bit exhausted physically from the previous days, BUT I actually felt quite rested ☺

2: The problem was that the room was full of BEGINNERS. How can this matter you may ask?! Well, let me tell you. Bikram yoga is HOT HOT HOT and a set of quiet challenging poses, which are always the same. With beginners in the room the teacher had to talk us through each asana which made some of us (me) hold the poses for FOREVER!!!!! Even the pauses were too long, it is damn hot in there and if I’m going to do HOT BAD ASS YOGA for 90min I need someone to teach in a strict, focused manner, not allowing me to think and ponder about 10000 of other things….arrrrgggg!



3: It is all in your mind! As soon as ONE person starts to give up and sits down, all white and pale, suddenly the rest of the class starts to drop out as well. All of a sudden, 85% of the class are not participating, only sitting on the mats like little gold fishes that fell out of their bowls, chipping for AIR! Even I started to think about if the room REALLY was heated to the right degree, perhaps the thermometer was wrong and it actually was 85°C in the room, hmmmm, yeah, I am probably right?!!!!! Yeah Right, NOT! It is all in our mind, I only have one thing to say: Group Pressure.

4: When you are in an advanced class it is not that the people are doing harder or more advanced physical postures, it is the FOCUS, you can cut it with a knife. I guess this is why I keep on coming back to Bikram. The HEAT, It is all in your MIND!!!



Looking forward to an Organic Breakfast Buffet tomorrow before I head to YogaShakti and It’s Yoga for some delicious classes. Lunch with fab LINA from NIKE and then all WORK; WORK WORK. Met Dr Dave tonight, I think we’ll make a great team on stage on Saturday! If you are in Sthlm, please join us!

Love Jo

Favourite things of the week

Mo:

Favourite things of this week:

New NIKE Heritage Mix Premium Club -hold all. Great size, nice design and bike-basket friendly.

New NIKE Blazer Mid in midnight fog/metallic silver. Hiphop-Grunge has never looked so good.


My new rubber-come-bling-washing-up gloves! PLEASE check out the RING (yes, it came with the gloves) and the little crystal on the black lace. The gloves were a present from my sister. She saw them in the shop and immediately thought about me! I do wonder why?...

Sleeping on the grass with the coolest little-person in the whole wide world...

...Daisy. 5 months old, with wicked hair and a fantastic smile.

Much better, thanks.

Mo:

Today was a better day. Although the rain was pouring down most of the time, I had sunshine on my mind....




Taught both yoga, spinning and kettlebell today. CRED to JO who joined me for both spinning & KB!

Conversation in the car:

Jo: "...I´m so looking forward to 1h of training!!"
Me: "..ehhhh, 1h? You mean 2h??"
Jo: "Eh, no, aren´t you teaching 30min spinning and 30min kettlebell?"
Me: "Jo, that´s on Mondays! You´re doing 60min spinning and 45min kettlebell..."
Jo: "Nooo? You´re kidding? Really? Am I? I just taught a Body Jam class! And ran from the club to Vasaplatsen...."

It took me from 11.30-16.30 to choose & put together the music for my SuperSaturday-class... phew! At least now it´s done.
I took the class for a test drive tonight and I´m planning to take it for a second run tomorrow at Sports Club, where I´m guest-teaching an Activio-class in their beautiful "new" spinning room.

Next week I´m invited to teach 2 classes (Tuesday & Thursday) at Kristinedals Träningscenter during their "Open House Week".

It´s nice to travel locally. I can sleep in my own bed and eat my own food at home. Just like on of the bears...Sweet.

NOT a good sport

Mo:

I´m pissed off.

I promised myself NOT to be "Swedish" about it. You know,

"...I´m just so happy to have entered the competition..."

"..it´s an athlete´s dream to compete and represent your country in the bla bla bla, therefore I don´t feel a failure ending up in 131th place..."

"...I could feel it too much in my hamstring, groin, head, stomach, _ and therefore I didn´t make it..." (fill out the blank with any body part).

"...When the bird farted, my rhythm got thrown off and it disturbed me..."

"...my outfit was too tight and didn´t fit me/broke/was the wrong colour/last year´s fashion..."

WHATEVER.

We have a freakin´ great idea.
We have a brilliant award-winning team.
We have more personality than all "techies" I´ve ever met added together.

And we didn´t make it through to the final.

I´m PISSED OFF, DISAPPOINTED & ANGRY. (And worried that someone in the jury will steal my idea.) If there had been a reporter sticking a microphone in my face right now, I would ask them to go and do things to themselves, which you normally can not do on your own.

I´m going to sulk for a day and then it´s back to the drawing board and our original time plan.

Revenge is Sweet.

IT IS ON...

It is a Full On Week ahead and YOU have the opportunity to JOIN!!

TUESDAY:


Vi har samlat eliten i BODYCOMBAT och BODYBALANCE för att ge er en FET upplevelse utöver det vanliga!

Plats: Gräsplanen vid älvrummet, framför Sportlife Exclusive.
Tid: Klassen startar 18.00 och slutar ca 19.30 Bokning görs via Exclusive 031-7112425.

Innan klassen startar prickar du av dig och får ut ett Sportlife linne eller t-shirt som används under passet. Boka dig NUUuuu! Ta med ditt crew - ta på det hetaste tränings-kittet - tanka vattenflaskan - lite extra deo och ta plats för sommarens FETASTE UTOMHUSTRÄNING. Publiken kommer dräggla!

WEDNESDAY:



Join me for the premiere FUNCTIONAL YOGA class at newly pimped YogaBuddhi
If you want to sweat, stretch and challenge your body and mind this is where your pretty little tush should be Wednesday morning 10am!

SATURDAY:


This is not your ordinary Saturday, it is SUPER SATURDAY! Join me, Mo and the rest of the ELITE Trainers of the world as we will find out who THE WORLD STRONGEST BODYPUMP Instructor is, some of you will dance your ass off, others will realize that pain is temporary, quitting lasts forever. We promise you the opportunity to go from "good enough" to "greater than"...

R u up for it?!

What are you waiting for?

Join Mojo and JUST DO IT

NIKE tour Sthlm 23 August

Mo:

Petter Ehrnvall & Niklas Liljesand. Before...

...and After...

Agneta Antonsson flying...

...in Magnus Ringberg´s Functional Moves class...

Mango, the instructor of the Century. Ultra-professional, humble and multi-talented.

Christer Söderberg, Lina Andersson & Ulf

My gorgeous roomie, Maria Olofsson, doing her Core-class

WOW - doing the MOJO - for our readers: Per Markussen, Anna Duberg & Robert Sörensen.

Sweaty stuff in the new NIKE-fall collection - which, by the way is the best collection for a very long time! MOJO likes!

...and finally, in Gothenburg, at Gymnasium Torslanda, Sunday 24 August. We even got the Bear doing the MOJO, whilst jumping Petter "the hunk" Ehrnvall... we decided the continuing photographs needed censoring...

Useless, overpriced crap makes me MAD! (Even when I´m not the one paying)

Mo:

NIKE tour Stockholm on Saturday at Frescatihallen. Wonderful to see parts of the team and to hang out. Fab Maria Olofsson and I shared a room at the Nordic Light Hotel, which was our tour hotel this year. Nordic Light is a beautiful "designer" hotel in the center of Stockholm, but I wouldn´t recommend it to anyone. What a disappointment!




We had dinner in the lobby-bar-come restaurant and the service was super slow. When the starters finally arrived, they had managed to sabotage my FAVOURITE starter of all times "Löjromstoast". How difficult can it be to make a smashing Löjromstoast???

Instead of serving the ingredients by themselves, there was a "toastie" on my plate, with a mash of "skaldjurssallad" inbetween, with some very badly disguised "ishavsrom" on the side!

Normally, it would take a lot to f..ck up a löjromstoast, but this was the best try I have seen in, like forever. My main course was an Entrectote with garnish.
Ohhhhh, let´s just say that that beef had not died voluntarily...
It had probably died from old age, getting killed in a hit and run accident, at least that´s the story the quality of the meat told.

The dinner was had to a thumping deep house beat. Being an electronica girl myself, I adore house music. Just not with my dinner. Try to chew, swallow & digest the food to 128bpm (add a thundering bass and you´ll know what I mean...)

Getting into the room, I find out that this 4-star business hotel wants to charge 60SEK for 1h of wireless internet! What? That feels SO 90s! Get a grip! Even my tiny, old hotel in EMMABODA had free wireless internet! Get with the program, guys!!!

In the morning we had to leave at 7am. Breakfast at this gorgeous, not cheap hotel starts at 7.30am on Saturday mornings. Heeeellooooo???? (Let me just say that the stunningly, beautiful, AVALON hotel in Gothenburg opened their breakfast buffet 30min early on Sunday morning just for the NIKE team...)




Anyway, we found out the night before that the hotel would leave us "breakfast bags".
We received a black plastic bag as we left the hotel. Inside was an apple, one banana, one concentrated fruit juice, one 100g chocolate bar + the tiniest piece of bun you´d ever seen, big enough to feed a 2-yr old. Yummy, just what you need before an 11h working day!

Would I recommend anyone to stay at Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm? Well, their bathrooms were gorgeous. That´s all I´m saying.

This thread was to be about the actual NIKE-day, but became something completely different... Well, I´ll post the photos from the weekend tomorrow and tell you a bit more about it then. :)

Gone with the Rain

I will be back soon, I promise but right now my GOAL is to finish DEXTER season ONE.

It's a hard job but someone's gotta do it.
I know S and N would be proud of me :)

Love Jo

Best friend of the day

Mo:

My BEST friend at the end of a long day - being on the bike and on my feet lecturing since 9.30am this morning:





Yes, a tennis ball. And a yoga mat (if you are as disgusted and childish about dirty/filthy floors as I am... I refuse to lie directly on the floor...even in my own apartment!...).
Anyway, place the tennis ball underneath whichever body part that´s aching and lie on top of it. Yes, with your full body weight. It may hurt as hell, but it´s paradise afterwards...


Yummy.

Center of the universe

Mo:

I get around.

Right now I´m in Emmaboda, waiting to teach an instructor certification Thu-Fri. For anyone who thinks that I only do 5-star glamour, please check out my hotel.



It reminds me of the places I had to stay in when I was working in Givisiez, Switzerland. Staff is lovely though (which the Swiss hotel staff could NEVER be accused of...).

Friday afternoon I´m leaving for Stockholm and on Saturday afternoon I´m presenting a yoga class at the NIKE-tour.

And when I come home on Saturday, there´s only 36hr to Monday 25 august...

A matter of mathematics

Mo:

Minus (-) 1 Road bike. Sold on Blocket Sunday afternoon.

Byebye Scott Racer... it was fun whilst it lasted. I´m sorry I didn´t have time to bring you out of the house more often during the last two seasons...

Plus (+) 1 Mulberry "Bayswater" in Oak. I have been infatuated for YEARS but always changed my mind last minute.

"Do I really want to spend that much money on a handbag?"

Now it´s done and although I truly know that things themselves don´t bring happiness, they can certainly bring a smile to your face. A big broad grin of a smile! :)

Hello, handbag! My coveted Mulbery "Bayswater" in signature printed tanned leather...

You Decide!!!

"Det bästa tillfället att plantera ett träd var för tjugo år sedan.
Det näst bästa är nu."

Så sluta skjuta upp dina drömmar.
Börja göra vad du kan och ta dig åtminstone en bit i den riktning du vill gå. Gör det NU!

See you on the mat

Jo

U can Do It Put your Ass into it!!!

Heja Heja Heja

I spent 4 years with a person and his dreams. It is such a beautiful thing watching him fulfill them. I am overly excited, I don't know where or what to make out of myself today, and it doesn’t help that I am all superstitious (as a child I prayed to GOD, but only when me and my cousin meet the BOSS in Super Mario, last level) and a yogi which adds up to me having about o thousands of mantras and rituals that I could/should be shanting and performing out loud. BUT instead I am gonna take it out on YOU!



As for today Rasmus Myrgren is in second place and the gold medal race in Sailing: LASER in Beijing is tomorrow morning at 7am. So here r your options:
At 7am Tuesday morning you could either:

A: Close your eyes, squeeze your thumbs and send ALL your focused energy to this FAB Sailor
B: Join me as I teach a Hard CORE class at Hagabadet 7am-745am (just drop me an e-mail and I'll hook you up)
C: Go for a morning run and give it your all, making the earth spin faster and the waves to rock harder (how could this help you may ask: Well I happen to know that Raz is one of the Fittest sailor, rough conditions only gives him advantage :)

So which one will it be?

I am counting on you!

GO GO GO

or to you Raz

OM OM OM

Jo

Today I made a CHOICE

It took a lot of guts, courage, bravery, but most of all I had to stop running, stand still and be present. Damn it’s hard and it scares the shit out of me ( I loooove running). But at least I did it. I decided not to feed it anymore because it was not part of what I am about!

What are you about?
Who are you?
What do you want to be about?
Why do you want what you want?

Make sure your actions are dominated by your wisdom and not your ego or vanity! And believe me, it is much easier to talk about this than to do it. Because doing it means breaking a lot of old stubborn habits, and you know it’s not easy to break habits, especially the “one,” the one we all have and the one that facilitates most of the other ones. I’m talking about our incessant, redundant, unnecessary thoughts that are constantly disquieting our minds and distracting us from the experience we are having as well as facilitating the mentality which we are trying to eradicate: The craving, aversion, the past, the future, the judgment, the criticism, the competitive, the reactiveness, etc. To break this habit we need to start starving it, removing its food. We need to start being present, paying attention to what we are doing.

If you stop feeding something, anything, it starves and dies. So in essence you are killing the thing that keeps you down.

“Solen speglade sig I havet en sista gång
innan den långsamt smekte vattenytan och försvann”



Jo

DANCE like EVERYBODY is watching

Mo:

Yesterday we hosted my sister´s Wedding Party. She got married in November and had Daisy in April, which meant that their party was slightly delayed. By the time they decided that they wanted the party to happen, all party places were busy. What´s a sister to do? Open up your apartment and host the big feast, god damn it!

It was SO MUCH FUN! Most of our friends are mutual friends and let´s just say there are no wall flowers in this bunch. Jez, they are all full-blooded exhibitionists who love showing off, dancing, singing, miming and making choreography to anything from Kanye West to Whitney Houston, 50cent & Stevie Wonder... by the way, I was severely impressed by E´s & M´s complete show to Neneh Cherry´s "Buffalo Stance"! WOW. Not to forget Febbe´s breakdancing routine which normally shows up after 1am - then you KNOW the party is ON!

After a phenomenal meal, catered by our dear friend Mike (see wonderful pictures below) we cleared out our living room and the dancing didn´t stop until 3.30am in the morning.

Wow. I love my friends. Although many of them have 1-2 children now, they are still the life and soul of the party and GORGEOUS people, both on the inside as well as on the outside.

So, now I know. To be able to dance the night away at this ripe ol´ age (to the best music!)-with the most awesome crowd-arrange a big party in your house, crank the music loud, make an ass-kickin watermelon/vodka punch and off you go!

Just before the first guests arrive... "Is that a huge water melon, or are you just happy to see me?..."

God, I love her to pieces. My wonderful, beautiful, phenomenal little sis.

Eating and mingling. Matt, Marcus, Elaine & Kajsa.

We started to count. We were amazed. We had to take a picture. We were 7 girls with Asian descent at the party, Nina the waitress included. Joyce, Sabbi, Beth, me, Yvis, Nina & sis.

The night has just begun. The "dancefloor" is already packed and the bass is pumping. Lucky my upstairs neighbour wears a hearing aid...

You know me, I LOVE my food. I love pictures of food. Here is an assortment of all the food we had last night. Trust me, it tasted even better than it looked...

Gorgeous salmon rolls with creme cheese, ginger (!) & horseradish!

...olives, melon with feta cheese, sweetcorn & peas...

Mmmmmm....