Each weekend this summer, Katlin O’Brien will pack up a mat and travel to a Quad-City park.
She’s not planning a picnic. Instead, O’Brien will join about 100 others who practice yoga in area parks during the warm summer weather.
“It offers a different environment and takes you out of your comfort zone,” said O’Brien, 24, of Bettendorf. “The grass is not even, so it’s a bit more of a challenge, but the parks are gorgeous, the birds are singing and it’s a really neat thing.”
Yoga in the Park is the brainchild of Shannon Smith, 42, the owner of One Tree Hot Yoga in Davenport. She began hosting the events last year and attracted several dozen participants to each of the activities. Hour-long sessions begin at 10:30 a.m.
This year, Yoga in the Park has been held on a few weekends already. Some 110 people attended the most recent session, which was held at Vander Veer Botanical Park in Davenport.
“There’s something about being outside on a nice day in general. But then you add 70-100 people all doing the same thing, with the same type of mentality. … It’s so much nicer than if you were practicing yoga by yourself in your living room,” Smith said.
Use of a sound system
Elizabeth Breinich helps Smith as an instructor at Yoga in the Park. Breinich, 56, of Davenport, plans to participate almost every weekend this summer. She and Smith trade off duties, which include hauling sound equipment to each site on Saturdays.
Organizers connect an iPod to a speaker system and also use a wireless microphone. “When we have 100 people or more, we have to walk around and talk with the speakers,” Breinich said, noting that voices tend to carry in the wind otherwise.
The skill level is geared toward beginners, and participants may bring children along.
“The yoga community is pretty big in the Quad-Cities, and Facebook and word of mouth bring the people in,” Breinich said. It’s a low-key event and people can come and go as necessary, she added.
Instructor Kelly Harris of Tapas Yoga Shala in Rock Island has assisted a few times with Yoga in the Park as well. She describes it as a people-friendly social event.
“There is more freedom outdoors,” Harris, 35, of Cambridge, Ill., said.
Other cities inquire
This week, Yoga in the Park moves to Veterans Memorial Park, 1645 23rd St., Bettendorf. Smith said the event has grown far beyond what she initially expected.
More yoga studios are getting involved, and Smith has received inquiries from other communities on how to pull off such an activity. “This just … seems to be growing and growing,” she said.
Smith sees Yoga in the Park as a community type of event that is great fun for the instructors and teacher-trainees as well as the participants.
“We have people who come up to us and say they have never done any kind of yoga before,” she added.
It’s cool to see 100 or more people doing the same kind of yoga at once, Breinich said.
“It’s so beautiful to have this in our natural community, outside.”