Practicing yoga is different for everyone — especially for one University of Ottawa student.
Julie Tremblay Roy, a second-year public relations student, says she found her passion when she got into yoga just over a year ago.
“My passions grow fast and furiously,” Roy says with a laugh.
Last February, Roy headed off to India to get her yoga teacher training.
“India was insane,” she says. Roy spent a month and a half in the city of Rishikesh in northern India.
“I woke up at 5 a.m. and went to bed at 10 p.m. and did yoga the whole time,” Roy says. “Yoga there is a huge lifestyle with diet through meditation and reflecting.
“Everything is more focused, like the posture and breathing. I came back completely changed. It was amazing.”
While in India, she was in a class with people from around the world.
“There were two other people from Calgary and one of my teachers was from Ottawa,” she says. There were also people from the U.K., the U.S., and Sweden.
She was the youngest one in her teacher training class, but Roy says that she was not intimidated for one good reason: “I knew not many kids my age go to India to do yoga, and I was able to form really good friendships with my classmates.”
“Everyone was there for the same thing,” she says.
While she was there, she says she received valuable insight on the healthy living aspects to practicing yoga.
“What my teacher was saying is that 15 minutes of yoga a day is the minimum you can do, and you will feel the benefits,” she says. “You will see a difference with your flexibility and in your self-confidence.”
Now that she’s back in Canada, Roy is sharing her passion through weekly yoga sessions on Parliament Hill.
Every Wednesday at noon in September, Lululemon runs yoga sessions on the field in front of the Centre Block for anyone who wants to practice yoga, Roy says.
“[Parliament] is a very significant location since it is the nation’s capital and it is close to downtown, for people in the government who can make it out for lunch,” Roy says.
Yoga on the Hill is in its fourth year. Last year there was one huge event with 586 people, all doing yoga, Roy says.
The numbers and age range in these sessions, which run at no cost, but it is helpful to bring your own mat. Mats are provided as well, Roy says.
“We have had consistently anywhere from 250 to 300 people,” Roy says. “In the summer we have had more students but on a regular basis people are more mid-30s,” Roy says. “It is not really hectic, but very well organized.
“Some people come regularly and some people are just travelling and stop in and they will come in and jump in, and they do not even need a mat.”
Roy says the level of yoga at these sessions is “beginner-intermediate, because the teachers would throw in something a little more advanced,” she says, “for people to be a little more adventurous in their practice.”
She believes that the popularity of yoga is only going to continue to grow.
“We have over 10 studios in Ottawa and we have so many teachers as well. It is overwhelming and it is crazy,” Roy says.
“Not everyone is in it for the workout, lots of people are into it for the spiritual practice as well,” she says.