Jess Tara is a yoga instructor but she is also an Instagram celebrity with over 300,000 fans. She has been known to take the clothing optional approach to her art. She is very flexible and beautiful as well.
“I’ve always lived by the phrase, ‘Whatever you do, make it art,’” says Jess Taras, the 27-year-old yoga instructor who has turned heads and gained a bevy of likes with her flexible poses on her #YogaAfterDark nightly entries on Instagram—where she has 181,000 followers. “Naturally, I put my own spin on my practice. I do things differently, I move differently.”
While these pages are usually reserved for buxom video vixens and reality stars who flaunt their feminine phat aside your favorite artists, we hat tip to those who use their social media presence to promote fitness and spiritual well being.
Jess, a six-year yoga teaching vet out of Los Angeles—with her own impressive 32DD-25-35 bodily dimensions—does this in spades. “My yoga practice is a celebration of all aspects of the human body and the physical experience,” says the Nigerian and White beauty who also moonlights as a fine art model. “Our society has been so conditioned to see a woman’s body as vulgar that we’re missing out on something really magical. I want to capture that.”
And while capturing the limits the human form can, uh, stretch, one post at a time— and clothing optional—Jess has no qualms about how her expression is perceived. “There have been times where I have taken a pic and thought twice,” she admits. “But I realized the only thing holding me back was a fear of what others might think. So, I said, ‘Fuck it’ and posted it anyway.”
Jess Taras: I’m ecstatic that yoga is finally gaining mainstream popularity! Knowing that I’ve helped create this movement means so much to me. I take what I do very seriously. I’ve trained for over a decade under renowned instructors around the world, hold multiple certifications and teach at the top gyms and studios in Los Angeles.
However, now it seems like anyone can add “fitness” in their social media bio and market themselves as health gurus. I want to make sure that we’re intelligent in our approach to fitness and that we seek out instructors who are educated and experienced, while also nurturing and inspiring new yogis.