MC1 INTRODUCTION Good afternoon & thank you for coming.

BYA ,with support from BYD, is excited to join with the USA Yoga Federation in presenting the 2013 Georgia Regional Yoga Asana Championship. USA Yoga, recognized as the exclusive US Member Federation of the International Yoga Sports Federation, is a non-prot organization that promotes Yoga Asana as a sport. (Asana is a Sanskrit word which means posture or pose and a yogi is a person who practices yoga.) To learn more about USA Yoga, or to become a member, visit usayoga.org. USA Yoga believes that the practice of Yoga Asana is benecial for the physical and mental health of practitioners of all ages. Increased awareness of the sport of Yoga Asana will encourage existing practitioners to sharpen their skills through training, dedication, and devotion to the sport, and will inspire new practitioners to discover the many healthful benets of a yoga practice. Yoga Asana competitions originated in India hundreds of years ago and are still being conducted there today. USA Yoga is bringing this spirit of healthy competition to the United States to inspire practitioners of all yogas and encourage many newcomers to take up the practice of yoga. In this Yoga Asana Championship individuals perform a series of yoga asanas and, according to standardized judging criteria, are given scores, much like a gymnastics competition. The Yoga Asana Championship promotes yoga by creating an impetus for dedicated yogis to be the best they can be physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.