Using every muscle in their bodies, 20 people struck poses such as the downward dog and the dragonfly in the 2013 Utah Regional USA Yoga Asana Championship. The Wildcat Theater was packed with 200 spectators as the WSU African Drumming Club welcomed the yogis and yoginis, male and female yoga professionals.

The competition featured poses from Asana yoga style. Yogis and yoginis from Utah and Wyoming competed head to head on Saturday morning and into the afternoon.

There are five compulsory postures and two optional postures, said Marlon McGann, the head judge. And in the five compulsory, they are five from the basic class, and the two optional are advance postures (that the yogi chooses).

Each yogi had to perform five poses, the standing head-to-knee pose, standing bow pulling pose, bow pose, rabbit pose and stretching pose.

You have to have normal breathing. It cant be labor breath, said McGann about judging the contestants. The person should be calm and serene. It just seems effortless. People should be in awe and want to perform it themselves.

Jacob Schanzer judged not only the Utah regional championship, but will also go to New York to judge the nationals at Hudson Theater.

We are looking for strength, flexibility, calmness, grace and balance, Schanzer said.

Each posture was scored on a scale of 1-10.

Most people are not trying to win something, McGann said. They are just trying to work on themselves.

This will be first year the regional championship is held at Weber State, said Michael Larson, director of the Bikram Yoga Ogden Studio. It is the eighth year it will be held in Utah. Every other championship was held in Salt Lake City.

The rest is here:
Yoga competitors find zen at Weber State