Yoga In the Sky Uses a Helicopter To Take Guests On A Unique Travel Adventure and Experience
At first, I was rocky. Then I was on the Rockies.
The rocky part was my first yoga class, and the Rockies part was that it took place in the Canadian Rockies.
Well, sort of, anyway.
Tourism Alberta put on an event in Southern California to promote its Heli-Yoga tours – yes, Heli-Yoga – and the fact that WestJet is now providing non-stop service from Orange County’s John Wayne airport to Calgary. The yoga was real, but the location was an outdoor section of the Irvine Spectrum in Irvine, CA. There was a replica helicopter and a huge backdrop of a beautiful mountain scene with soothing music and, frankly, when we closed our eyes and followed our instructors’ instructions to “reach high into the clear mountain air,” it wasn’t difficult to imagine being in the clear mountain air.
We are all familiar, of course, with Heli-Skiing, where a helicopter takes extreme skiers and snowboarders to extreme heights far beyond the chairlifts of us more normal souls. It’s the stuff of Warren Miller videos, YouTube and what’s shown in bars at ski resorts.
But now, in what can only be termed as extremely creative marketing, Tourism Alberta has introduced a similar program, using a helicopter to take guests to an unusual adventure. Except there’s no daredevil element and pretty much anyone can do it. It takes a very spiritual endeavor and puts people higher up in a natural environment than they could hope to reach otherwise.
Irvine is most certainly not the Canadian Rockies, and it was a bit amusing to hear the instructors say “feel the soft ground below you” when in fact it was concrete and to know that, despite the soothing music and soft verbal instructions, the 405 freeway was busily buzzing just over our shoulders.
I had no idea what I was doing, and kept trying to get peeks of the instructors to make sure I was not doing something silly that passers-by and the PubClub.com and event photographer would capture. I even had a flashback to my freshman year in college where, as a member of the University of Alabama’s Million Dollar Band, I was leading 350 members on national TV and temporarily forgot where I was supposed to turn. I could have made a real fool of myself – as well as ended my band career before it even began – had I not suddenly recaptured my senses.
Thankfully, it was much less vital to be precise with the yoga and I wasn’t at all; in fact, I kept peering at my neighbor who was obviously an expert in an attempt to form my body into a shape that somewhat reasonably resembled what everyone else was doing at the time. And frankly, I could do without that down-facing dog position.
Still, it was both relaxing and energetic. I had always been curious about yoga – it’s very big in PubClub.com’s World Headquarters location of Manhattan Beach, CA – but I had yet to try it. It was quite apparent that I have more of a runner’s or aerobics mentality to my workouts because I was always popping quickly into place and breathing fast. The trick to yoga is to slow down and slowly take in things. It was easy to understand the appeal of taking a helicopter to a scenic mountain location.
In order to experience the real Heli-Yoga, which is called the Natural Namaste package, just just go the Visit Calgary website and book a trip. The package includes the following:
• Three nights accommodations at Hotel Arts in a suite with breakfast;
• 30-minute helicopter flight;
• Gourmet backpack picnic by a waterfall;
• 3-hour hatha yoga glass with panoramic views;
• Wine on the mountain top (yeah, now we’re talking!);
• Ambassador Limousine airport transfers plus a four-hour tour of Calgary
The trip is available in the summer months and prices start at $1,799, CDN.
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