A Hafla Story: Zyen's got on her yoga groove!

I had a lovely time joining Zyen at this Hafla (belly dancing party hosted by the famous Sophia Kong) event. I brought along a camera to catch her in action. She's been dancing for over 10 years, and WHOAH, she's good! Charismatic and technically brilliant on the dance floor (in my humble opinion). Overall, she dances her heart out, and that's what really matters *grins*

She comes for yoga very often at Surya Yoga. She says that it helps her maintain her physique and flexibility. Her performance that night was captivating and her flexible moves were the product of years and years of training and not forgetting yoga!

Zyen's special performance was a fusion of belly dance with jazz and latin influences. Yoga helped build up her core muscles helping her with belly dancing movements and the much needed technique of isolating muscles. In addition, she managed to build muscle tone and strength to execute the more jazz and latin movements in her performance.

Me, Zyen and Jo at Surya Yoga

Most dancers take up yoga to keep their body in shape and some yoga poses in fact, help build specific body muscles needed to dance well and with control. Yoga in itself is rather graceful. There is a type of yoga called Tripsichore which can be explained in short as 'dance yoga'

www.brooklynyogastar.com

It explores a variety of stylistic forms including punk ballet, conventional modern dance and strict neo-classical techniques. This yoga dance is very fluid and rather beautiful. 

I personally like contemporary dance, and I know for a fact that yoga helps tremendously in helping sculpt a dancer's body! Look at Zyen! She's uber fit! Basically any type of yoga helps and does wonders to the physique.

She danced to a medley of music from Shakira's "Whenever Wherever" to No Doubt's "Hey Baby" to Pussycat Dolls' "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps".  She blew me away (and others too), everyone was so quiet during her performance, everyone stopped talking, and paid full attention to her mesmerizing moves! 

A little collage I made for Zyen

Catch Zyen's full performance!

Zyen prepping up for her belly dance performance

Lots of behind the scenes work goes into looking the part *smiles*

 All dressed up. Gotta love her outfit!

 Photos with other participants 

and Sofia Kong (bottom left corner)

*laughs* and me (top left corner) 

All the vibrant very seductive belly 

dancers that performed during the hafla

(can you spot Zyen?)

So dancers, take up a yoga class (preferably at Surya Yoga *smiles*) 

and you'll see the difference it makes to your dance skills!

Zyen showing us some yoga poses, 

she participated in Surya Yoga's 'Strike A Pose' project

for the blood donation drive we held earlier this year

Zyen, at our detox retreat this year at Janda Baik, 

she wrote about us too in her website.

Click here to read all about the Janda Baik detox retreat!

Thank you Zyen for letting me use these photos! *grins*

"Yoga is a fantastic complement to a dancer's daily routine. Yoga helps improves one's breathing, balance, flexibility and muscle tone, all of which is needed for a dancer, no matter which type of dance, be it belly dance, jazz, contemporary, even hip hop dance and salsa!  

It is not enough for a dancer to be able to move to rhythm, he or she must have the stamina and the ability to execute the moves. Speaking as someone who has tried a variety of gym classes, I always come back to yoga because yoga is the best complementary exercise to improve myself as a dancer."

                                                                                                                          ~ Zyen Hoo

Don't forget to check out her website!

www.zyenhoo.com

Oh, she's joining us for our Yoga Carnival and 
8 hour Yogathon coming Sunday, 6th October 2013 as well!


You guys making your way down to Surya Yoga for our Carnival?
See you there!

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Namaste

Elirus