The international yoga day is a world wide event where all yogis gather to celebrate this good sport. Many yoga communities in Singapore also organise free events to introduce Yoga to first timers and seasoned yogis.
This year one of my friend, HT, who is a practice yogi at Pure yoga invited me for the Pure yoga event #yogaforall. Periodically, Pure yoga organizes yoga sessions for the public for all to join without charge. This is the second time I am doing yoga with Pure, everytime we have great fun doing this.
This year’s session is a 3 hour long yoga that focus on 108 sun salutations. I know how to do sun salutations but I have definitely not done 108 of it before. It is definitely a challenge. The sun salutation is a series of 12 yoga poses linked into a flow of movements.
Registration
The registration is done on Event brite it self and you will receive an e mail for the sign up. The whole event starts at 09:30 to 15:30. Morning part consists of the yoga challenge followed by 30 minutes of Meditation and then the start of the afternoon session. Participants need to register before hand to participate, they do not allow on the spot registration. The event was held in Hort Park in the open field right at the back of the park.
Registration table
The place is tranquil on a Saturday morning. Participants have to bring their own mats and other necessities they need for practice. Pure Yoga set up a registration table and stage with solid audio system. Once you arrive, their staff will check in your attendance. A waterproof goodie bag with metal straw ( to save the environment), a Pure Yoga magnet and a bookmark with Yoga quote. For a free event, I felt that was very nice for them to provide such items.
event venue
Goodie bag items
108 Sun Salutations
On our mats!
At first I did not know what I had signed up for, I thought that it was just some simple 1 hour yoga stint. Then when the 4 instructors came on, I realized I was wrong. 108 sun salutations was the challenge of the day. They are namely Sheryl, Niru, Gabrielle, Azmi, Yen, they took turns to come up and give instructions. Usually the last set is by Azmi.
Getting serious in our challenge
So we laid our mats and got started. It was a rather cool and grey day. After a few pranayam exercises, we went into the first set. Just as the first set was about to finish. It started raining, many folks gave up there despite the rain was not that heavy. The bad part of having it in a park is that there are not many sheltered areas for the participants to hide.
As we continue, the mats started to get slippery, so some of us actually went on to the grass patch to do instead. True enough the rain did not last that long and soon it stopped.
We continue with our sets. With the different instructors coming on, we can experience the different styles of the instructors and their focus. Somewhere through the 3rd set I could already feel my arms aching. So some of the salutations I did not do the vinyasa ( namely the chaturanga, cobra). But I try to force myself to at least go through it when I felt better.
The arms really can feel the shaking and strain. Even the core starts to wobble. Huiting and me just keep pushing on, we had already braved the rain, so we were determined to finish up the challenge.
In between the sets, we get to rest for a few minutes for water and toilet breaks. In fact till the end, even a downward dog is like a good break for us.
Finishing it up!
gotta back bend at the end
The finishing was done by Azmi, he did a twist to it all adding in the moodra and a little dance to the final salutations. The music was louder and we all had fun, the sun came out but it was still bearable.
The best part was there were ice cream pops provided free for all after the 108 salutations. It was so refreshing having the hard earned ice cream. Me and Huiting too two each. Their flavors were also very tasty.
Enjoying our pops
Before we left for the day, we had some cameo shots at the entrance of Hort Park. It was really pretty.
To sum it up, the whole experience was amazing, and I was happy to be able to do more yoga these days than running. It was also fun having a partner and friends to practice together. Will definitely join more of these sessions.