Hyderabad spellbound by yoga enthusiasts

Hyderabad: One look at the podiums erected (for various age-groups) at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskar Reddy Indoor Stadium for the 39th National Yoga Championship proves that yoga enthuses young and old alike.

The dais for people over 35 years saw several participants aged 50 and above performing advanced and complex asanas with ease.

“There is no age to start learning and when the by-product of learning is good health, then why not?” said 52 year-old Narendra Kumar, a native of Patna, Bihar. Mr kumar holds a black belt in martial arts and started learning yoga about a year ago.

“I realised that yoga is the mother of all exercises because many of the warm up exercises in martial arts have been adopted from it,” Mr Kumar said.

Over 1,000 such yoga enthusiasts have come down from 26 states to take part in the competition organised by Telangana Yoga Association (TYA) under the guidance of Yoga Federation of India.

Yogasana, artistic yoga and rhythmic yoga are the various categories of this championship.

Speaking about the need for encouraging yoga as a sport, TYA working president S.N. Reddy said, “Yoga is India’s gift to the world. But lack of encouragement and support from the government have reduced the number of practitioners. We hope the state government will take steps to make yoga a part of the school curriculum to help future generations keep health problems at bay.”

Tapesh Bhattacharya, a yoga instructor from Himachal Pradesh, feels that the government should encourage yoga practitioners with benefits like reservations and jobs.

“Yoga is not a costly sport. In fact, the costs involved are minimal. I encourage children to learn and take part in such competitions because it will make them health conscious from a young age,” he said.

Mr Bhattacharya has participated in six National Yoga Championships till now and is accompanied by his daughter, nine-year-old Khushi, and three other children.

“I performed 10 asanas here today,” said a cheerful Khushi.

The competitions will be on till December 29 and winners of this championship will take part in the Asian Yoga Championship to be held in the months of February-March next year.