Our workout of the week series delves into the newest fitness trends, classes and technologies and explores the latest wellness movements to help you get ship shape for your next superyacht vacation. This week Zoe Dickens tries out the Yoga Wellness Company’s Wellness Unwired workshop.
The basics: Founded on the principle that, rather than just helping you get fit, yoga should have an all-round stress relieving affect on your life, the Yoga Wellness Company hosts workshops and fitness retreats at beautiful locations around the world. Intensive weekend workshops are aimed at deepening your practice while longer retreats help participants to relax and release tension by combining various types of yoga with sightseeing, spa treatments and other activities.
What they say: “Our lives today are lived under enormous stress and pressure and we may regularly feel overwhelmed by it all. Our intention is to guide you to achieve a happier balance in life and elevate good health as a priority. Our workshops and retreats are designed to create a space to work on yourself allowing you to relax and release tension whilst renewing your longevity and wellbeing. Yoga works with the mind and body in unison and is an ideal vehicle to bring about a personal sense of tranquility and peace which may have eluded you for a while.”
What’s it like: I signed up for one of the Yoga Wellness Company’s Saturday morning Wellness Unwired workshops at the Good Vibes studio in London and, in complete honesty, balked when I later realised that it was three hours long. My previous yoga experience having been limited to a beginner’s course where each session lasted just one (entirely sufficient) hour, I went into the class with some trepidation as to how I would cope.
Led by company co-founder Jennifer Ellis – who, with her long, lithe limbs and calming aura, is the perfect advertisement for taking up yoga in a serious way – the workshop was loosely split into three phases: breathing, yoga practice and meditation.
After around 30 minutes of soothing breathing techniques aimed at preparing the body for exercise while simultaneously settling the mind, we were ready to begin the yoga proper. Ellis’ style mixes dynamic Vinyasa flow sequences with more restorative poses and gentle but effective corrections resulting in a class that was extremely challenging but not dauntingly difficult and, with only four of us in the class and nowhere to hide, I was extremely grateful for this. By the time the final savasana came around I was astounded to see that nearly two and half hours had passed.
Ellis then led us through a short period of guided meditation. Having never considered myself the meditation type I found it a wonderfully relaxing experience and, as Ellis explained, just five minutes of this type of complete stillness and calm each day can have a profound effect on mood and energy levels. Leaving the workshop feeling energised, optimistic and a good three inches taller, I have to say I couldn’t agree more.
Tickets for the Yoga Wellness Company’s Wellness Unwired workshops cost £45 per session, visit theyogawellnesscompany.com.