High Country Life

Health + Yoga + Community

My favorite new spring dish: chopped collards, green onion, garlic, purple cabbage, roasted chickpeas w/ hot lemon + ginger water.

Hey y’all! Spring has sprung in the High Country, and it’s feeling more and more alive each day as the sun sets later. I’m feeling blessed for my healthy family, my healthy body, this new generation, this gorgeous town, my connections, and the roof over my head.

I once decided that I would intuitively practice yoga, and that unplanned plan led down a wild path that I have enjoyed observing and studying. Moving intuitively (aka 10 mile runs through Moses cone, or spontaneous climbing adventures), eating intuitively (throwing out veggies and proteins and letting the children decide the meal), and intuitive relationship building (knowing when it’s a healthy relationship and when it’s not). My takeaways from self-observation are : Sleep, diet, movement, environment, and relationships. They are the foundations of raising a healthy family. Trust me, I’m not always doing it right. I keep messing up…… and listening.

Being a mom of three children with a busy schedule is no joke. I have no clue how people do it without a yoga practice. My children are accustomed to walking into the kitchen with me in a handstand or flying pigeon pose in-between flipping oatmeal pancakes, or suddenly deciding with 48 hours of no rain we need to go camping ASAP! We try to live minimal, but we love to play! The floor stays dirty even though it’s swept one million times a week. The car rotates between rock climbing gear, bikes, paddle boards, snowboards, skateboards, yoga mats, book bags, water bottles, and coolers. Living in the High Country is a full four seasons, and if you’ve ever lived them, you know what I mean. Each season is filled with festivals, concerts, sports, kids + more kids, friends, and all things mountains.

Sometimes as a yoga teacher, I think everyone assumes I walk around eating lettuce and meditating with my children on a clean yoga mat in our very simple home. The truth is, it’s a LOT more complicated than that. Usually, I do yoga in my pajamas, outside in jeans with mom’s at the park, move furniture around in arctic temps to just get my own yoga in. I make it happen, because many moons ago I decided to commit to yoga. Not take it on like this hardcore discipline. It was more like I let it move through me, yet approaching it with some daily discipline, because I knew the cause and effect.

Mudita (in the High Country)- the practice of having immense joy for the success of those around you. Healthy relationships affect our mental and physical health and that’s one thing this community has. Integrating community with business has been exciting and fulfilling as I’ve never imagined. Everyday it seems I’m sending clients to Ayurveda specialist at High Country Ayurveda, to Wildwood Community Market for fresh goods, to The Care Collective for bodywork, or to my favorite coffee Joint, Mountain Grounds. I love to see my bachelorette groups spontaneously drop into Reids for dinner. Part of being a healthy community is supporting each other’s business and clients feel that here. They leave our mountain towns knowing we are a family, we problem solve, and we flow together in the valleys and mountain tops.

As the busy summer mountain season approaches, I hope you all take time this spring to practice self-observation, mudita, and connect with the community wherever you are.

What a gift it is to love where you live.

Namaste,
Jenna, Founder of Avery Community Yoga

Private Yoga

Here at Avery Community Yoga we specialize in private lessons. We give clients one on one sessions to provide a safe environment during times like these, an opportunity for dialogue with a teacher, a personalized yoga experience, and to build confidence within their personal practice of yoga. With new guidelines of social distancing we are no longer providing physical assists and are pure and simply thrilled to be able to serve clients in the ways of yoga again.

Reservations only: email us to book your Private or Semi-Private session.

Why Privates?

People come to the studio for private sessions for just that ….

Sometimes we just need one on one attention to learn something new, change our practice, or become familiar with new ways to use our bodies.

Privates are usually the ticket into exploring yoga uniquely just for you. It’s an opportunity to learn what your body and mind need, which style of yoga is for you, or to dive deeper into yoga postures that you need explicit instruction.

Sometimes just one private gives people the confidence they need to come to group classes. Other times people just want to take their basic practice to the next level. Many come just to heal their bodies or take the time to learn how to breathe correctly.

“I remember the first time a student experienced the three part breath. He said it was like coming home.” - Jenna Thompson, owner of Avery Community Yoga.

Community Highlight: Peg Schroeder

Part of me thinks that Peg Schroeder, and her friend Dot Griffith, are why our little studio is in existence. Maybe not fully, but they, along with the rest of the community, pushed me into thinking it could work. They set up an appointment for me to look at the old schoolroom that needed a great deal of renovation, but touted some gorgeous windows. I met her at the school to take a look at the old space, with my three rowdy children in tow. I walked into the BE Artist Gallery for the first time, met the folks at CML magazine, reminisced in the Book Exchange, poked my head into the theater, and left with a sense of the possibilities of a community studio in a community building. As we walked out, Peg said, “this light and this building, Jenna, are perfect for yoga." I trusted her, and I'm so glad I did.  

For those of you who already know this artist, women's advocate, and community member already know her infectious laugh, big personality, and the encouragement in her nature. She and her husband, David, were long time visitors of the High Country until making it their home in 2012. Peg began weaving soon after, and found the combination of symmetry and creativity inspiring and satisfying. She studied in Crossnore with renowned Penland weaver Edwina Bringle and through the Master Weaving Program from Olds College of Alberta, Canada.

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Creating wearables, household items such as table runners, towels, and rugs, and wall art, she is often inspired by nature, incorporating objects found on hikes as well as up-cycled building materials, beads, and bells into her weaving. Her fiber choices are varied, including cotton, bamboo, wool, alpaca, silk, and others. She especially enjoys working with fibers hand-spun and dyed by women in fair-trade cooperatives around the world. She feels a community with these women as she weaves their yarns. Her art is featured at the BE Artist Gallery at the Historic Banner Elk School.

Peg and David attend weekly classes at Avery Community Yoga. They often join in on Sunday mediations. Peg now hosts the third Sunday meditation focusing on the Noble Eightfold Path. She creates a down-to-earth environment and is enthusiastic about bringing in the community. It's inspiring to see women like her pursue art, yoga, and community. I hope to be a role model to young women like she has been to me, guiding them into a place of business and community.

The light in the yoga studio shines bright like the light Peg shares when she attends classes and community events, and hosts meditations. She represents why this studio is a community studio.  

By Jenna Thompson, Founder of Avery Community Yoga
Photos by Michelle Lyerly Photography

Giving to RAM

Avery Community Yoga is teaming up with yoga teacher Dot Griffith to collect donations for over 200 extra children in Avery County who need gifts this holiday season. You can donate with cash or check when you visit our studio in Banner Elk.

RAM (Reaching Avery Ministries) has been in existence for over 35 years serving those in need in Avery County. They help families with food, clothing, furniture, household items, crisis situations and emergency financial assistance. The RAM's Rack Thrift Store helps to make this possible.