Yogathon At Hindu Temple Atlanta

A day-long yogathon (relay yoga marathon) was conducted at the Hindu Temple of Atlanta, Riverdale on Sunday, January 17th, 2010.  This is the second consecutive year that the Yogathon was conducted in the month of January.
HSS conducts Surya Namaskar Yagna (SNY), a yoga marathon, spanning 3 weeks as part of its ‘Health for Humanity’ campaign. Yagna translates into offering.  SNY is a unique marathon conducted every year to create awareness about yoga and its advantages in achieving a healthy body, mind, and spirit.
For the year 2010, HSS is conducting the yagna from Jan 16th to Jan 31st with a target of 10,000 participants and 1 million Surya Namaskars. This is done on the days between Makar Sankranthi (signifies the onset of Uttarayana) and Ratha Sapthami (also known as Surya Jayanthi that marks the onset of spring).
The yogathon at the HTA started at 10 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m.  A total of 8706 Surya Namaskars were performed. This was 25% more than last year.
228 people participated in the yogathon; of these majority of the people were new participants. They showed much interest and participated actively after learning how to do the asanas from HSS volunteers.  Many of them took daily tracking sheets with a pledge to continue doing Yoga on a daily basis.  Sixty-five participants were HSS Swayamsevaks and Sevikas. Children as young as 4 years also participated.  Many of the participants peformed 13 or 26 Suryanamaskars, some of the participants did more than 108 Suryanamaskars.
Hymavathi Mikkilineni, president of the HTA, while speaking on the occasion stressed on the importance and benefits of doing yoga. She appreciated the efforts of HSS Karyakartas for bringing the yogathon to HTA.  Being a practicing physician, she cited the example of a study that showed people who did yoga regularly reported better health than people who had to undergo surgery to ease back pain.  The temple President and the entire executive committee also participated in the marathon by performing many Suryanamaskars.
HSS Sun Salutations marathon coordinators Indushree Purushothama and Sandeep Parashar thank the President and  Executive committee for their tremendous support, encouragement, and involvement without which the marathon would not have been a success.