Things To Do In West Kelowna

At Urban Links, golfers up their games with hands-on training sessions with certified instructors and access to an indoor facility with the latest in golf training technology. Golfers can cure their slice-, shank-, or narcolepsy-prone swings inside hitting bays that feature TrackMan swing-analysis software, which uses motion sensors and video playback to break down swinging motions. Urban Links’ resident aces also enlist TrackMan technology to help players find out the club specifications that best fit their swing and body type. Along with lessons and club-fitting sessions, golfers can take advantage of the equipment and develop secret handshakes with cyborg Greg Normans during independent practice sessions in the hitting bays.

The seasoned dance instructors at the core of Latinesque Ballroom and Latin Dance Studio specialize in working with beginners, teaching simple timing and basic individual steps. Instructors adopt a casual, easygoing approach for private lessons and group classes in which students may switch partners multiple times, much like a cop on the edge with nothing to lose. Instructors train their students in 11 social Latin and American dance styles such as the quick-paced cha cha, sultry Brazilian samba, slow rumba, romantic waltz, and dramatic tango.

Diving Dynamics primes aquatic explorers for underwater adventures with an in-depth introductory diving course taught by experienced instructors. The 60-minute session—known as the Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) course—orients participants with a comprehensive tour of the facilities that covers essential scuba equipment that students can touch and tango with. Once geared up in provided equipment, pupils dip into a custom-built pool to practice breathing underwater and sea-friendly manoeuvres for 30 minutes. The introduction also enlightens interested parties by explaining the best practices for transforming a scuba hobby into a vocation. A hot-dog cookout further bolsters the discovery course and serves as bonding time for participants and teachers. Diving Dynamics requires participants to bring their own bathing suits.

Inspired by the teachings of living yogi master B.K.S. Iyengar, the well-trained teachers at Kelowna Yoga House guide students through a practice that champions prop-supported backbends and inversions to bolster stamina, strength, and range of movement. Beginner classes introduce bodies to the basic standing poses and inversions on the spacious studio's hardwood floors, and more experienced practitioners can delve into the intermediate and advancing classes' unsupported backbends and inversions. Gentle yoga makes use of belts, ropes, and pillows to help practitioners assume proper poses and craft a Rube Goldberg pillow fluffer after class, and a slow pace eases those working with injuries. With 25 classes a week, yogis can stretch with more frequency than a superhero's spandex biking shorts.

Amid bright-orange walls and colourful, pose-inspired artwork, guests at Bikram Yoga Kelowna are sweating. Stretched into the triangle pose with a hand raised toward the sky and their eyes following suit, their muscles gain a helping hand from the studio itself—heated to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. During more than 20 weekly classes, students gather there to detox and improve their strength with Bikram yoga’s 26 muscle-spanning postures. Throughout each routine, the instructors’ focus remains on alignment and posture, ensuring that participants refrain from overexerting themselves or letting their minds wander away from their practice toward daily matters, such as work or counting how many times they blink.

The certified instructors at Bikram Yoga Kelowna draw from personal inspiration as they help students sweat and stretch toward fitness. Teacher Jjanet Barnes follows in the footsteps of her father, who has studied yoga for years and provides ongoing support and encouragement. Shandell Houlden, on the other hand, finds inspiration in the poses themselves. Of the 26 postures, her favourite is the standing head-to-knee pose, which starts off feeling very challenging but eventually produces a sensation akin to flying.

It isn't just the instructors at Kelowna Hot Yoga Studio who help students connect with their bodies: the studio space is also vital. A high-efficiency air system generates up to 12 airflow changes every hour, and a UV filter system keeps the air free of toxins, odors, and bacteria. All-natural floors, gently cleaned with eco-friendly soaps, cradle bodies during classes. And yet the most important amenity is the infrared heat—it penetrates deep into muscles to warm students rather than the air around them, improving on the old technique of just eating hot water bottles.

Kelowna Hot Yoga Studio is the brainchild of founder Brenda Wowk. Brenda draws from her yoga studies in India—and experience as a reiki practitioner and personal trainer—to helm a range of heated and non-heated classes tailored to all ages and ability levels. Instructors help students stretch out muscle fibers, loosen joints, and condition their cardiovascular systems in classes spanning styles from hatha to warm yin to ashtanga, each heated to between 85°F and 103°F. The studio also holds advanced workshops, yoga teacher trainings, and a yoga boot camp.