[bowl chiming]
- Briana Kidd: When I'm practicing yoga by myself,
I am able to let go
of all of the other things that bother me on a daily basis,
that make me uncomfortable, stressed, worried.
It's just me and my body and my breath.
And it is this moment to pause and to reset
and to stop focusing on outward things
and to focus inward.
It's this just kind of intimate connection
that is so valuable and so needed.
[upbeat bluegrass music]
My name is Briana Kidd
and I am the founder and owner of High Country Yoga
here in Boone, North Carolina.
I was 23 when I opened High Country Yoga,
and we've been operating for seven years now.
I wanted to be able to provide a space for people
to come together and leave all of their drama at the door
and just be able to come and breathe and move together.
And I knew that feeling at home
and grounded in the mountains was really the reason
that drew me to open a yoga studio
here in Boone to kind of parallel that groundedness
that the practice brings you,
and also that this area brings to me.
I was a gymnast growing up.
Through gymnastics, I have really honed in
this mind-body connective concept
that has stuck with me.
Yoga is this way of really, you have the same focus
that you would if you were doing your gymnastics routine.
But there is this sense of nurturement
that the practice gives you, that gymnastics,
that was just more of like a competitive,
kind of fun activity.
But I think it really shaped me into being able
to appreciate yoga for being a practice
that just makes me feel more grounded.
I had always been teaching yoga through college,
and so whenever I graduated, I said, "Okay,
I'm gonna keep teaching yoga, regardless where or how."
And so I feel that yoga is definitely my calling.
When I think about what else I would be doing
other than teaching yoga, I have no idea. [laughs]
I think a lot of people come to High Country Yoga
for this feeling of stretching and moving the body.
Once they take even just one class
or five minutes of a class,
they realize that it's a whole lot more
than just putting our body into different poses.
The practice brings us all together
in a sense of a nonverbal, connective way.
So we come together
and the practice can kind of speak for itself.
And it's a shared vibration.
It's a shared energy.
I love practicing yoga outdoors because yoga brings you
into this state of present moment awareness,
and there's all sorts of little magic outside
in nature that you can connect to.
Being outside makes me feel like me.
Those moments that I take just to be outside
and to pause are probably the most special moments
that really help me to feel healed and harmonized
in who I am as a person.
I think High Country Yoga is really unique
to the mountains here in Boone.
I don't think that I would want to take the studio
and put it anywhere else other than where we are right now.
Boone has offered this sense of wholeness for me.
It's really carved out who I am
in the past ten-plus years that I've lived here.
I feel like High Country Yoga is this way
of me being able to give back to this community
because it's done so much for me.
I feel like there's this exchange of energy that happens,
that it's not just me sharing practice with others,
but others sharing inspiration with me.
And so I really love that connection.
[spoon playing] [upbeat bluegrass music]
- Announcer: Boonies is made possible
by the Watauga Economic Development Commission.
Also by First Security Insurance.