Darfur Awareness Group hosted a yoga rave that raised about $90 for Invisible children at the UCF Rec and Wellness center on Thursday, Feb. 19. At 8:30 p.m. over 80 participants squeezed into the exercise room after being provided with free glow sticks and finger lights to play with while doing the yoga routine. The room was pumping house and electronic music with laser light fixtures and spinning lights around the room in the dark for the hour-long class. The yoga routine was designed to provide a new concept in fun where the body responds only to the stimulation of music, yoga and meditation.
Tiffany Hsieh, the president of Invisible Children at UCF, said, “This is our third semester holding this event (since Spring 2012) and we plan to continue hosting the Yoga Rave once a semester.” She explained how after watching a video of a Yoga Rave that was hosted in Vancouver, Darfur Awareness Group was excited for the opportunity to host a fundraising event like it.
“I personally had only done Yoga once before and was absolutely terrible at it…But I actually had a lot of the fun at our first Yoga Rave. The glow sticks and rave music really created a fun environment. I barley noticed I was exercising! It was a fun way to not only raise money for the non-profit Invisible Children, but also raise awareness about the LRA conflict in Central Africa,” Hsieh said.
Adelaide Baker, a sophomore studying physics at UCF, attended the event with her friend and said, “We were going to do our own workout, but saw it advertised in front of the student union, so we said ‘Why not?!’ It’s yoga and a rave!”
This yoga class was not a class designed for beginners; there were some advanced moves incorporated throughout the routine. “This is not your grandmas workout,” the instructor, Marcello Hamui, said.
“It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed the glow sticks. I was sweating and raving at the same time!” said Gina Agnello, a junior studying theatre.
To learn more about where the Yoga Rave idea came from, visit this site: