Carolinda Witt

Early years

Carolinda was born in Kenya where her father, Frederick Witt was Managing Director of the Commercial Union Insurance Company for East Africa. She attended Loreto Convent Msongari in Nairobi and represented Kenya in two international swimming competitions where she broke three national records: Kenya Junior Record,Girls 12 & Under 200 metres Backstroke; the Kenya Junior Record, and the Zambian Age Group All- Comers Record for the 100 metres backstroke.

In 1968 she continued her training with Reinhardt Kunkel the former West German Freestyle Champion, with a view to competing in the Munich Olympics in 1972. In 1969, she broke her left shoulder in an accident putting an end to her swimming career and shortly afterwards her family moved to South Africa followed by the West Indies, England and Australia.

In 1984 Carolinda and her husband, Martin who individually tailored, home dialysis equipment and supplies to over 2,500 patients throughout the United Kingdom, sold their company, Unicare Medical Services, to Baxter Travenol Laboratories, part of the US Health Care Company Baxter International Inc and moved to Australia.

Ballooning History

Carolinda was 20 years old when she began hot-air ballooning in England. She became a commercial balloon pilot and competed in a number of national and international balloon competitions. In 1979, she and another balloon pilot, Lady Gwen Bellew attempted to become the first female balloon pilots to cross the English Channel, sponsored by Famous Grouse Whiskey. They were pipped at the post by another female pilot who got wind of their attempt and managed to beat them to the finish.

In the early 1980s Carolinda's sky blue balloon was a familiar sight all over the English countryside. Carolinda, together with her friend the late Sheila Scott, the famous aviator who amongst her 100 flying records flew solo over the North Pole in 1956, flew her balloon throughout the UK drawing attention to the plight of otters whose habitat was being destroyed.

In 1988 Carolinda flew Richard Branson's Virgin Jumbo Jet shaped balloon from Perth to Sydney in the Australian Bicentenary Trans-Australia balloon race. As part of the pre-race publicity, Carolinda and her crew tethered a red Virgin balloon to a barge, and sailed it fully inflated past the Sydney Opera House, and under the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Five Tibetan Rites Teaching History

Carolinda has held a lifelong interest in healing and teaching. She has diplomas in Clinical Hypnotherapy, Thought Field Therapy (TFT), Holistic Pulsing, Magnetic Therapy, the Kinaesthetic Process. She is a Reiki 11 Level Practitioner, and has taught Holistic Pulsing at Technical and Further Education Colleges (Tafe) throughout Sydney. Carolinda holds a Certificate IV in Assessment & Workplace Training, and for several years, delivered self-development and personal growth workshops throughout Australia.

Carolinda has practiced and studied yoga, meditation and breathing (Pranayama) since she was eighteen. In 2000 she was introduced to The Five Tibetan Rites through a teacher of the Five Rites, and began teaching them in workshops throughout Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

Carolinda has since taught thousands of students all over the world through her workshops, books and DVD. In the beginning, her teaching followed the methodology described by Peter Kelder in his 1939 book The Eye of Revelation, which contains the fascinating story of the discovery of the Tibetan monks who developed these well-known anti-aging movements. However this book contains very limited instructions and illustrations which is sufficient for some people and not for others — generally those who are younger, physically fit, have good body/mind awareness or a yoga or fitness background.

For others who require more in-depth instruction to learn how to do the movements, or to establish if they are doing them correctly, Carolinda developed a step-by-step method that makes the Rites easier and safer to learn. Her method is also ideal for those who have difficulty with one or more of the movements or for people who need to modify the Rites to suite their individual anatomical variations. An example of this body proportion i.e., the length of the arms versus the length of the trunk in the 4th Rite: people with shorter arms need to prop the hands to complete this movement comfortably.

The Five Tibetan Rites are very well known and sought after for their anti-aging, and energy-raising benefits. They were developed at a time when people lived a far more menial lifestyle compared to the largely sedentary western one of today. In teaching the original method in her workshops, Carolinda noticed a small but recurrent pattern of lower back pain or neck pain developing in a percentage of students, and decided to find ways to prevent it occurring.

Significant improvement came about when she advised students not to over bend in the lower back and neck as described in the original Kelder book, The Eye of Revelation as this compresses the vertebrae and intervertebral discs. Instead of "lean backward as far as possible; at the same time the head should be lifted and thrown back as far as it will go,"— as Rite No. 3 is described by Kelder — she recommends keeping your spine "long and strong" and to "avoid compression."

Current History

She consulted chiropractors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, Iyengar Yoga, Pilates, Feldenkrais Method, and Occupation Health Practitioners, and asked them to help her develop a way of learning and practicing the Rites, that would maintain the integrity of the original Rites – but remove the potential for strain or injury. As a result of their input, and the experience gained in the living-laboratory of her classrooms, Carolinda developed a step-by-step method of learning the Rites that progressively built people’s strength & flexibility from the inside out.She called this method "T5T" which is an abbreviation for The Five Tibetans.

Carolinda added core stability to the Rites. This is an internal movement and is not obvious to a casual observer. People doing the T5T version look the same as those doing the original version except they don’t compress the lower back or neck. When core muscles are activated correctly, they completely encircle the spine, stabilizing and supporting it like a natural weight-belt or girdle. People who have a history of back or neck pain, and those with weak core muscles are more prone to injury as their muscles are unable to function correctly in stabilizing and protecting the spine. In T5T, core strength is developed by adding a new muscular challenge to the core muscles every week for the ten weeks it takes to build up to the required 21 repetitions of each movement. Kelder advises beginners to start with just 3 repetitions per week, then add 2 more repetitions per week, until they are doing the required 21 in ten weeks’ time.

To reduce stress and anxiety in normal daily life as well as improve vitality and health, Carolinda incorporated a greater focus on breathing while practicing the Rites. In between each Rite a series of three energy raising breaths are carried out which results in a more flexible and adaptive breath for normal life, as well as during the Rites.

Published Works & History

Ballooning Highlights