This weekend in San Jose, the third annual National Yoga Festival for Costa Rica took place, with dozens of yoga centers around the country participating by offering free yoga classes at their studios on Friday and Saturdays. The festival is put on every year by ASOYOGACR, headed by local yoga instructor Edgar Ortiz Salgado, who also taught one of the classes.

The festival culminated with a full day of events held at CENAC (The National Arts and Culture Center) in downtown San Jose, just north of Parque Morazon. Teachers from the central valley offered free classes, as well as teachers from various yoga retreat centers such as Nancy Goodfellow from Pranamar in Malpais/Santa Teresa, and Jill Ruttenberg of Ama Tierra in the mountains of the central pacific coast.

A variety of special yoga classes were presented, including yoga for kids, yoga for pregnant mothers, and aroma yoga.

Along with yoga classes, other programs were offered as well, such as meditation, qi gong, and tai chi.

A variety of food vendors, such as Organico from Montezuma, were set up all day to provide organic and nutritious meals for the hungry masses.

Many other vendors set up shop as well, selling yoga clothing, hand-made jewelry, bath and beauty products, imports from India, yoga mats and props, and many other great things. The vendors were so crowded it was difficult to see what they had to offer.

In addition to all the classes, CENAC’s main stage had several hours of music and dance, acrobatics and circus shows, aerial silk, and amazing yoga demonstrations, such as Ashtanga teacher Matteo’s incredible show of power, balance and flexibility that had the entire audience spellbound.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the festival immensely, and many commented that they wish it was held more often, or for longer. With yoga’s appeal growing at a rapid rate, both in Costa Rica and internationally, we hope that will happen.