Vanessa Smith is the founder of NessYoga.co.uk, Teaching Yoga in and around Bristol.
She has studied under many teachers from all over the world, taking in teachings from India to London with international teachers from different aspects of Yoga. Ness has been climbing for the last 10 years finding her love for the outdoors and Adventure, she has travelled across the world in pursuit.
Classes include Yoga for Climbers in Bristol and Therapeutic & Restorative Yoga. Ness has worked with Adventurers from all different walks of life through to her therapeutic work with Cancer survivors . She encourages everybody to move, breathe and stretch, and join her at the WAExpo for an energizing start to the event and a restorative evening class to settle your inspiration from the day.
What is yoga and why is it important to an adventurous lifestyle?
Yoga is a physical and a mental guide for daily life. It promotes clarity of thought through meditation and physical wellbeing through movement and breathing.
Any adventure requires mental focus and a robust physique. This might be for an endurance event like climbing Everest, or a cycle ride across the length of Britain, a pulse raising ski run, balance in slack lining/surfing or snowboarding or even decision making when things aren’t going your way. The practice of yoga helps develop your most important tools you have at your disposal for any adventure, your body and your mind. Many people are put off by the preconceptions of yoga being only for a certain age or people who are already flexible or ‘spiritual’. The real meaning of yoga is to use techniques in body movement, breathing and meditation to improve your balance, strength, focus, flexibility and body awareness. When practiced regularly you can take your adventure to the next level.
You can do Yoga anywhere from Everest base camp to your front room!
Yoga is practiced by top athletes like Jessica Ennis-Hill to Russell Brand. Yoga is for all abilities and ages currently Tao Porchon-Lynch is a 98 year old American Yoga teacher inspiring the whole world with her Yoga practice.
Yoga spans any gender, age and ability.
The main aspect of why we take on any adventure, is the experience we get along the way, the challenges, the growth of seeing it through. Yoga can help you focus in the moment in your adventure to take on all aspects of the journey.
Yoga can benefit us as adventurers physically, gaining flexibility, strength and better blood flow around the body. Yoga helps the muscles, tendons, and ligaments move through a full range of motion, thus cultivating balance and core strength which is a huge benefit to us on our adventure.
Yoga can help us mentally with focus, body awareness, and keeping a calm mind. The mind-body connection in yoga is essential to helping us develop mental acuity and concentration. In addition, yoga helps us to relax not just tight muscles, but also anxious and overstressed minds.
As Frank Borman writes, “Exploration is the essence of the human spirit.”
Adventure & Yoga are the perfect comrades as they both work on our ‘spirit’ they are tools to help us grow and learn about ourselves in an intimate way. Whether that’s taking a deep inhale of breath or placing your first step on the mountain.
Ness Yoga will be offering FREE yoga at the WAExpo this year at 9.00am for a kick start to the event, an energetic 30min class. Again, at 5pm, we’ll end with a 40 mins class to wind down the event, a slower deeper stretching session to solidify the day and relax and unwind your body.
Throughout the day, she will be around to answer any of your questions and generally hang out and chat. Be ready to share with her your stories of adventure and wellbeing.
