Cabot group practices yoga in rain forest

By Amy Widner

LITTLE ROCK — File this one under "going the distance."

Some people find quiet and mental serenity in the practice of yoga - an ancient combination of breathing exercises, physical postures and meditation - but Sharla Holladay, owner and primary instructor at YogaYou in Cabot, decided to take that idea one step further. She organized a trip so that she and 11 students could travel to Costa Rica to practice yoga in the rain forest.

Finca Anita, the facility that hosted their visit, constructed a yoga pavilion for the group so they could practice their art in an open-air shelter by a lake - protected from the rain, but about as quiet and serene as things can get. Imagine no airplanes going by overhead, no distant freeway noises - just being out in the middle of nowhere, Holladay said.

"The toucans were flying around," Holladay said. "There was this creek right behind us thatwas running the whole time. There was this really serene atmosphere. And the funny thing - and I didn't even think about this, but then you're like 'of course, you're in a rain forest.' It was raining a lot of the time, and I was having to yell over the rain to teach class."

The daily schedule for the trip participants included two yoga sessions a day that ranged in length - an hour to an hour and a half, Holladay said,depending - and plenty of off-the-mat activities, such as riding horseback, sampling the local food and zip-lining (dangling in a harness underneath a cable) through the rain forest.

"The last yoga class was really nice - we were all just really into it," Holladay said. "The food was amazing. All the meals were fresh. They gave usthree meals a day of just delicious, freshly prepared food. And the zip-lining was great, although some of the other students will probably say they liked it the best, the more adventurous types."

Adventurous type - that describes Kelly Overstreet of Cabot, who went on the trip with her sister, Jeanne Raymond, who lives in Massachusetts. Overstreet said she's done plenty of traveling, but this was probably the most awesome experience of her life.

"The zip-lining was the best," Overstreet said. "My sister and I are afraid of heights. I can do roller coasters and things like that, so I wasn't sure about the zip-lining. It's funny, we thought we were maybe going to get to practice or something. But no, we just hiked right up into the jungle, and they hooked you in and sent you on your way. So you didn't have time to get scared. We were traveling from platform to platform. The last one was a quarter-mile long.It was just amazing."

It was a trip of firsts, Overstreet said, especially because her sister had never done yoga before. Overstreet had. She's been taking classes at YogaYou since September 2008. She said when she heard about the trip, she thought, "Oh, sign me up." It was a chance to combine two loves: travel and yoga.

"Exercise hasn't always been one of my favorite things," Overstreet said. "I know I need to do it, but that doesn't always mean that I want to. But when I started doing yoga, it is just a form of exercise and meditation that I almost instantly gravitated to."

Holladay said that of the 11 people who went, some were local - Cabot, Jacksonville and Beebe - and others were from as far away as Canada.

Holladay said she got the idea for the trip when she and her oldest daughter visited another Costa Rican facility that had special yoga accommodations. The trip wasactually originally scheduled for that facility, but had to be changed at the last minute. Holladay said Finca Anita did a wonderful job of providing for the group, especially considering they had so little time to prepare for the group.

In another instance, a washedout bridge proved adventurous, and they had to drive through the river to get to the facility. But those were the only traveling-in-a-foreigncountry mishaps, and Holladay said the trip went well enough that she'd like to do it again.

The Costa Rica trip was Feb. 14-19. Holladay said it was a bit of a trial run. Now she's planning similar trips for Tulum, Mexico, during the first week of April 2010. She's thinking about additional Tulum dates and wants to organize a return trip to Costa Rica within the next two years.

- awidner@ arkansasonline.com

Three Rivers, Pages 55, 56 on 03/05/2009