Lindsay Resca of Sharon, a 12-year-old student at Sharon Middle School, has taken yoga training for the last six years, and it’s paid off.
In late January, she took first place in the state youth division for the second year in a row, and she was overall New England youth champion at the 11th annual New England Regional Yoga Asana Championship in Madison, Conn.
In winning, she earned the right to compete for the national title in the USA Yoga National Yoga Championship in Binghamton, N.Y., this May. In last year’s nationals, she took third place.
It’s easy to pinpoint a key influence as she develops her skill: Her mother, Kristin Resca, teaches it at Bikram Yoga in Stoughton, where her daughter trains.
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“It’s fun, and it helps me with dance,” Lindsay Resca said.
She’s also a competitive Irish step dancer, training at Harney Academy of Irish Dance in Walpole. She’s participated in a variety of competitions and once took first place in a team at a national event. In March, she will dance at world competitions in Montreal.
“Last year at 11, she was just old enough to compete in the yoga competition; that’s the minimum age,” Kristin Resca said. “She asked to do it; it was all her. We didn’t push.”
Resca and her husband, Peter, also have a 10-year-old son, Timothy, who prefers karate and basketball. She has been a certified yoga instructor since 2007, practicing the discipline since 2000.
Mother and daughter often travel together to various yoga and Irish step dancing events. That, in addition to her work as an instructor and duties as a mother, “makes me a taxi driver, too,” she said, laughing.
Lindsay said she goes to yoga events a few times a year, more so to dance competitions, which can number two a month and be as far away as Connecticut and New York.
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She’s good at yoga, but dance is her first love, she said, something she trains for and practices five days a week.
Kristen Resca is no stranger to yoga competition either, having taken part in various events, including regional competition in January.
“She competed this year,” Lindsay Resca said, adding with a giggle, “but she didn’t place.”