Thousands prepare to pose at Boca yoga class

New Year’s Day tradition at Mizner Park popular among fifirst- time yogis.

Interested in trying yoga in the new year?

You might want to start at Boca Raton’s Mizner Park Amphitheater on New Year’s Day.

You don’t need experience, just “a yoga mat and good attitude,” said Leslie Glickman, who teaches a free class that draws more than a thousand people to the event.

Something Big, the annual outdoor yoga class that draws to the amphitheater’s lawn a sea of brightly colored yoga mats and eager students, is in its third year and, like the practice of yoga itself, is quickly gaining popularity.

“The first year, about 1,000 people showed up. The second: 1,500,” Glickman said of the New Year’s Day yoga event. “Who knows how many will show up this year.”

The event is popular among fifirst- time yogis, said Glickman, founder of Yoga Journey, a studio in the Wyndham Hotel in Boca Raton.

“It’s really about stepping out into the new year and a new beginning,” Glickman said. “Many of us thought that 2016 was a tough year. This is our way of wiping the slate clean.”

It’s also a destination for those ingrained in the South Florida yoga community, said Kiki Baxter, a Boca Raton resident who attended the fifirst Something Big and plans to attend this year.

“I know people who drive up from Miami, from all over South