Former pole vaulter Katharina Bauer joins forces with yoga teacher and author Christine Bielecki to promote heart health at their yoga retreats. Kismet Yogastyle supports the two women in their mission to promote stress reduction.
After 20 years of competitive sport, former pole vaulter Katharina Bauer (33) finally has time to carry her heartfelt message to the world. Bauer is campaigning for heart health because she herself was diagnosed with heart disease as a child. Her heart beats more frequently than that of healthy people. At some point, the extra heartbeats rose to a life-threatening level, and even an initial operation was unable to curb them. It was then that the doctors confronted Bauer with the reality: in order to continue living safely, she would have to have a defibrillator implanted. For Katharina Bauer, then 28 years old, this news came as a shock. Above all, however, because she initially feared that she would no longer be able to pursue her great passion, pole vaulting. Contrary to all predictions, she was able to continue her career. She made it to the 2019 European Indoor Championships in Glasgow and the World Championships in Doha in the same year - with willpower, meditation and great faith in herself, but what was even more amazing was that she was able to reduce her extra heartbeats to a safe number again. Together with journalist and yoga teacher Christine Bielecki, she wrote a book to encourage other heart patients: "Yoga for a strong heart. Promoting heart health with the right exercises, meditation and breathing techniques."
Bauer and Bielecki are convinced that the approximately 6 million people with heart disease in Germany could benefit from a regular yoga practice and greatly improve their quality of life. The two can now finally put the principle of the book into practice in the form of yoga retreats. They have chosen particularly beautiful places to do so. Their retreat series kicked off at the end of September in the Maldives, at the beautiful Baglioni Resort Maldives. "It was actually always the plan that Katharina and I would pass on our philosophy of yoga practice for a healthy heart in the form of workshops and retreats, but Katharina's busy schedule as a competitive athlete made this very difficult to implement." Now that their careers are over, the two women can get started two years after the Spiegel bestseller was published. The second retreat will take place from May 12 to 16, 2024 at Alpenresort Schwarz in Mieming, Austria.
The fact that the two are able to work with the Kismet Yogastyle brand as outfitter for their retreats fills them with pride. Especially because the company and the two women want to convey the same values. "Just as Kismet stands for trust and that fate is kind to us if we trust our own voice, I have always dealt with my heart disease," says Katharina Bauer. "I never let myself be dissuaded from my path; even with heart disease, I wanted to find out what my limits were as an athlete. Many people had written me off. I always listened to my own heart and today I know that it is my calling to pass something on to other people." As bad as the day was for her when she was implanted with a defibrillator, she now sees that this day paved the way for her future.
