Winter Yoga Yagna 2018 - A Report
Yoga Bharati has been conducting Yoga Yajna (SNY) for more than five years now. In recent years, it has been offered twice a year, in winter and summer, as a 21-day Yoga challenge.
Yoga Bharati has conducted population studies with yogic parameters to show the effectiveness of Yoga, mainly Surya namaskars and Om chanting. Starting the year with a physical and mindfulness discipline for the body and mind brings health and happiness to individuals and families.
This year’s Winter Yagna was conducted from Jan 1st to Feb 3rd. Saturday, February 3rd, was a day for yet another year of Yoga Yajna conclusion (formerly Suryanamaskar Yajna) at Yoga Bharati. This year, Yoga Yajna had to offer much more than the inauguration and the closing events. Yoga Bharati also offered and supported daily practices for the participants with 3 weeks of free protocol practices.
Yoga Bharati President Anil Surpur, Yoga Therapy Director Savita Joshi, Events coordinator Siddu Rati, Therapy Coordinator Reshma Amin and Education coordinator Rima Shah led the event. Our Executive Director, Ashwini Surpur, had put together a one-hour yoga asana protocol around Suryanamaskars and pranayama and Om meditation. Many of our teacher volunteers conducted the morning classes from 6:30-7:30 am. The teacher volunteers included Shilpa Kurkut, Vandana Pathak, Bina Desai, Minakshi Rai, Anil Surpur, Ashwini Surpur, Shobha Charagondla, and Savita Joshi.
Many other volunteers, like Nikhita Malladi, Parul Africawala, Urmi Kandpal, Dhivya Ravi, Ratna Ullagaddi, and others help execute the event.
We started with subtle body practices and loosening exercises. Three areas were dedicated to the practice: classic Surya namaskars, neck/back pain Surya namaskars, and chair Surya namaskars. The main area led the classic Surya namaskars.
A group of close to 50 participants, men, women, kids, and our seniors (ages 7 to 70 years), started with individual Sankalpas (intention setting) to practice 108 Suryanamaskars.
The event started sharp at 7 am with energizing music to complete nine sets of 12 Surya namaskars each. Yoga Bharati follows the ten classic form of Surya namaskars. So, a total of 1080 asanas aimed to be completed in 90 minutes. We followed a 1-minute rest while listening to beautiful quotes from Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhiji, and Martin Luther King during the 1 min rest in between.
We closed the event after 12 sets (108) of Surya namaskars, which was around 90 min after the start of the event. Participants were asked to perform back stretches in the supine pose, like lumbar stretch and Pavana Muktasana, rolling practices. Deep relaxation techniques with chants helped us to connect ourselves with our deep silence and existence.
Our youngest participant, a 7-year-old Meenakshi, also completed all 108 rounds. Team energy was such that our seniors refused to take the chair but did their practice on the mat, and most of them completed at least 50 rounds.
One of the yoga yajna participants, Anil Surpur, gave feedback about the Sankalpa and his actual practice. He was sick the day before the event and was almost about to skip the session. “Sankalpa (intention) setting helped me to wake up and reach ON time to the event and complete all 108!”
Female Category Winners - Savita Joshi (453), Rajani Sinha (420), Vanaja Jagini (286)
Male Category Winners- Santosh Kulkarni (644), Vikram Pandita (444), Paresh Africawala (300)
Congratulations!
Few statistics of the 2018 Yajna (as of Feb 2nd evening)
Total registrants - 114+
Female participants - 81
Male participants - 33
Participation:
Age range - 8 years to 70 years
Children less than 18 years - 18
Children less than 10 - 10
Suryanamaskars reported - 6,228
Aum reported - 7,296
Instructions lead 24 FREE yoga sessions online and coaching sessions from 6.30 to 7.30 am, including 3 Inaugural sessions and one closing session.
The group had healthy snacks and herbal teas after the practice. Everyone left the place with a sense of accomplishment and carrying the strength and courage to accomplish anything in their lives