Residents of The Villages joined communities worldwide to celebrate International Yoga Day on Thursday morning at Lake Sumter Landing. Held on the summer solstice since 2015, International Yoga Day has been celebrated in The Villages as Yoga on the Square since the beginning with an outdoor yoga session open to everyone. This year was no exception.
Residents arrived at the square on a hot, sunny morning with yoga mats in hand, prepared to carry on the tradition.
Katie Burns has organized this event all three years, the first two through her association with MVP and this year the event was organized with The Villages Recreation Department and The Villages Health.
“Everything just fell into place this year,” said Burns. She sees this event continuing and was delighted that so many yoga instructors who teach classes at the recreation center participated. In addition to the main instructor leading the class, instructors were interspersed throughout the crowd so that everyone could follow along.
“I love this event,” said busy yoga teacher Colleen Carone. She teaches yoga at Eisenhower, Bradenton, Fenney and Rohan recreation centers. “It allows everyone to be exposed and give yoga a try. It is also just exciting to be part of a global activity. When you see yoga groups from all around the world highlighted on the news tonight, it will be nice knowing we were also part of it right here at Lake Sumter.”
A tag team of instructors led an hour-long yoga session, including a warm up, cool down and many sun salutations and downward dogs in between. The session was finished off with a nice, relaxing meditation referred to by one instructor as yoga dessert.
Yoga on the Square participants enjoyed sunshine during the whole event, escaping the rain that soon followed. Another part of the International Yoga Day tradition seems to be following yoga dessert with coffee and muffins, judging by the number of folks headed to the open eateries on the square.
Village of Hemingway resident Bill Siewertsen was trying yoga for the first time.
“I am looking for something new,” said Siewertsen. “I’ve tried a few things since moving here and nothing has seemed quite right. I know I need to be doing more for exercise than walking my dog.”
He said that he really enjoyed the parts he could do and looks forward to trying yoga again.
“My son said jokingly it might be a good place to meet women, and I think he was right,” he said, noting the mostly female crowd.
Mother/daughter team Joyce McKee and Karen Canby have been to Yoga on the Square every year. “We love outdoor yoga,” said Canby. “We do it often on the beach when visiting my sister.”
They struck up a conversation with Barb Stout, who moved to The Villages in December and was attending for her first time. “I loved the energy of all the people here,” said Stout.
All three agreed that nit was a great way to see the various yoga instructors and their styles. As far as for the heat, “We just pretended we were doing the style of yoga called hot yoga.”
