I tried a yoga class at 800ft on the top of The Shard - and the views were incredible
My eyes are shut, but when I open them I can see the Heron Tower, the Walkie Talkie, and the Gherkin amid a blue sky dotted with clouds - this is the view from the world's highest yoga class (at least according to the organisers), set on the 69th floor of The Shard.
Run by the yoga retreat company Yogasphere, the class - which costs £40 for an hour- is held at 8.30 a.m. each Saturday at The View from The Shard, where up to 55 people spend an hour moving their bodies into difficult positions, guided by the instructor Leo Lourdes.
"We believe in mindfulness," Lourdes, 36 - who founded Yogasphere in 2013 with his partner Mandy Jharmat, 35 - told Business Insider. "People are so physically OK but mentally [they have] all kinds of different issues like depression and stress."
The couple currently offers classes out of seven locations across London, as well as private classes and yoga retreats, which are held everywhere from Greece to the Himalayas.
The company also has an ecological initiative, planting 10 trees for every customer each time they attend a class. The trees are planted in South America, Africa, and Asia, Lourdes said, where the company hopes to plant 1 billion trees.
I went along to a Hatha Flow yoga class at The Shard to experience it first-hand. Here's what I thought: