2013: Halifax's Summer of Yoga in the Park

This year Halifax joined the "cities with Yoga in the Park" club. Up until this year outdoor, free or by-donation yoga was basically a Halifax Yoga in the Park one yogi club... Despite the fact that the city has over a dozen yoga studios and a population of under 400,000.

I am so excited that this summer has resulted in multiple, weekly outdoor and free yoga experiences all over the city.

I'm not sure what happened, maybe it's a combination of the right new yoga teacher grads passionate to share with their city, or perhaps it's HYITP's growing popularity... Or maybe it's just happy circumstance that studios all around the city saw the benefit if sharing a yoga class under the big open sky.

This past weekend, for the first time in years, we saw the collaboration of multiple yoga studios for one massive free, all day community yoga event: YOGA Switch Up, a part of Switch! Open street Halifax. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend (sad, I was hugely disappointed, but sometimes yoga is about balance and not asana), but from all accounts it was a huge success, and most likely this is (if not wholly, but partially) thanks to one amazing community minded yogini: Sarah M. She rocks.
Check out the amazing photos by Currie Photography: http://www.currieyogagraphy.ca/p544395564

Halifax Yoga in the Park also saw some fun, exciting changes this summer. We had four yoga instructors donate their time to lead practices over the summer. It was inspiring, heartening and I feel so blessed to have shared me practice under the sun and beside the ocean with them. Numbers in the Facebook group are growing, we were featured in Chatelaine and in a local Halifax magazine: The Southend!!! Crazy eh? Our classes have also grown to sometimes have more than 20 yogis each week, practicing together under the wide open sky.

My own personal yoga practice has benefited hugely from this summer and I'm hopeful we can get another few weekends in before autumn really kicks in.

Halifax yogis have spoken loud and clear: Free Yoga in the Park is wanted and here to stay.