The floor of Cole Field House was a sea of brightly colored T-shirts and yoga workout gear. Participants packed themselves side by side in a snaked line. Energy was at a high. To everyone’s surprise, the numbers weren’t.
Campus Recreation Services’ attempt to break the world record for the longest human yoga chain fell short Tuesday night, with about 160 fewer people attending than needed to break the record.
A total of 537 people — ranging from students to parents to the elderly — participated in the yoga chain on the turf inside Cole. CRS tried to rally 700 people for the event to surpass the current record of 696 participants, set on Jan. 30, 2013 in Cuddalore, India, according to the Guinness World Records website.
“We were approached by the organizers of homecoming, and they said … ‘What can we do fitness-related that would possibly make UMD history?’” said Kate Maloney, CRS spokeswoman. “So we took a look at the fitness-related records and tried to find one that was feasible for our facility space, and one that we thought Terps would get really excited about.”
Before the fitness event began at 6 p.m., its “Think B1G and say ‘OM’” Facebook page suggested an attendance of about 590 people, out of about 2,800 invited. Maloney said prior to the event that she was confident that number wasn’t an accurate representation of the final attendance.
“We’ve never done a yoga chain event, but we have done fitness events for homecoming week in previous years, and we’ve had over 700 people at those events,” Maloney said before the event. “We’re totally confident that this is doable.”
Even those attending the event, such as sophomore computer engineering major Ryan Sachs, exuded confidence and excitement at the prospects of breaking a world record.
“We’re all very excited about yoga and breaking the Guinness World Record, so a lot of us came out,” Sachs said as he and other Sigma Nu fraternity members waited on the turf. “If I were to make a guess I’d say there’s at least 30 of us here … probably more.”
The 537 people who did attend stood on marked taping on the turf that formed a winding line. They had to complete a total of three different yoga poses led by campus yoga instructors: Warrior II, Triangle and Cobra.
For each pose, participants had to be touching each other — the point of touching varied for each pose — to create the chain. Participants held the pose for a minute or two while volunteer witnesses conducted oversight. Fifteen volunteer stewards at the event counted the participants in their sections and verified correct pose execution.
“The hardest one was probably Cobra because it was weird to touch someone’s feet while you were doing it,” said Elaine Athey, a sophomore biology major. “Kind of awkward, but it was all fine.”
Stewards and witnesses were used in lieu of a Guinness World Record’s adjudicator, which Maloney said would have cost CRS $1,500. Since the world record was not obtained, final numbers, witness reports and footage covering the event will not be submitted to Guinness, said Brianne Rowh, CRS assistant director of fitness.
Despite not breaking the record, which was reminiscent of a 2012 event when CRS tried to break the record for the university’s largest Zumba class during homecoming week, Rowh said she is more than pleased with the outcome, especially given the event’s timing.
“I think sometimes it’s just the communication piece when you’re on a campus of this scale and so much is going on … your event can be challenged to reach out to everybody,” Rowh said. “But we were very much in the grasp, and that’s exciting … 537 is a big number.”
