Let ‘er breathe.

About 30 women and one man sat on yoga mats inside the Pendleton Convention Center on Thursday morning, moving with fluid grace at the direction of their instructor. Surrounding the scene sat comfortable couches, area rugs and battery-powered votive candles that emitted a flickering glow. Mariah Carey’s “Money” pulsed through the room, inexplicably enhancing the serene scene.

Only four months earlier, the state’s best 2A basketball teams had battled in a sweaty and testosterone-fueled championship game here under harsh overhead lights.

Not today.

This was the first morning of the five-day Yoga Round-Up, an event all about stress relief and rejuvenation. Participants checked anxiety and Type A tendencies at the door.

The group was small on this opening morning, but organizer Tania Wildbill said she expected a couple hundred more yoga lovers to arrive by evening and certainly by the weekend. More than 100 had preregistered and she expected the number to at least double.

“Anyone can come,” she said. “It’s free. We want the community to come and get rejuvenated and refreshed.”

She said the event was financed by a Wildhorse Foundation grant and other contributions. As Wildbill talked, she looked toward a raised platform where Shannon Red Cloud guided the group in BUTI yoga, a fusion of yoga, tribal dance and plyometrics. Red Cloud, who owns the Pure Yoga studio in The Dalles, offered a brand of high-energy, sensual and untraditional yoga which incorporates cardio and a flow of movements. From their yoga mats, the group closely mirrored Red Cloud, who spiraled her hips and raised her arms to the sky.

The conference agenda features traditional yoga, too, with plenty of downward facing dog, but includes less-traditional offerings, too, such as paddleboard yoga at the McKay Reservoir and an emotional freedom technique for stress and pain relief.

One participant, Amanda Brennan, followed Red Cloud with ease. A financial consultant for Columbia Bank, she took two days of vacation to attend this year’s event. Brennan, who found yoga at the first Yoga Round-Up six years ago, recalled her first exposure with something akin to awe.

“It was such a huge shift,” she said. “It absolutely changed me. I just wanted to be part of it.”

Brennan joined a yoga class and returns each year to the annual Yoga Round-Up, which Wildbill started with her husband, Cedric.

This year, some of the sessions take place on the grass in the Round-Up Arena, such as the opening Saturday class on Surya Halo Flow, led by Christen Allsop, starting at 8 a.m. A full schedule is available online at yogaroundup.com.

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Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastoregonian.com or call 541-966-0810.