#YogaForAll: Who’s the fittest of them all?

The New Indian Express takes a look at some everyday people whose lives have been changed because they’ve given yoga a shot.
Practising yoga regularly has several benefits including increase in flexibility, a balanced metabolism, good muscle strength, improved respiration, vitality and agility. (Photo | EPS)
Practising yoga regularly has several benefits including increase in flexibility, a balanced metabolism, good muscle strength, improved respiration, vitality and agility. (Photo | EPS)

CHENNAI: All of us are quite familiar with body shaming, but let me tell you that it has several subsets such as fat-shaming, skinny shaming and so on, all of which are slowly making their way into the minds of people — thanks to social media. Also, in case you have any doubts about this, let me reiterate that skinny-shaming is a real thing. Skinny and really thin people are often criticised for their physique and such has been the case for Rashni Parichha, a 26-year-old from Kolkata, who currently works in Bengaluru. 

Rashni was introduced to yoga during her school days when she was 13 years old. “I’ve always been skinny fat. Everyone used to say, ‘You are so thin, why do you need to exercise?’. But I did not feel quite good about myself and felt that I looked malnourished. People had their own thoughts about my body structure and asked me why I was worried about my weight at all. I was aware that my body fat percentage was quite high and I couldn’t fit into the pair of pants that people of my age easily could. I wanted to work on it,” says Rashni. This is where yoga came into the picture. 

The 26-year-old digital designer says that she learned her basic yoga exercises from tabloid magazines. “After learning the basic ones, I thought I could push myself a little more and began trying out the tough ones. Gradually, I began practising, my flexibility improved and I was even more motivated. It’s something that I am really proud of and it’s not something I am going to stop doing anytime soon,” she says.


BODY AS THE VEHICLE FOR SELF-TRANSFORMATION

There are six branches of yoga. Taken separately or apart (you’ll notice some even overlap), they are called the paths of personal and spiritual development within yoga. Hatha yoga, which is the practice of yoga postures, or asana, using the body as a vehicle for self-transformation, is the most commonly known branch. Hatha Yoga literally means ‘union through a discipline of force’. It is a school of Yoga that puts stress on the mastery of the body as a way of attaining a state of spiritual perfection in which the mind is withdrawn from external objects. Hatha Yoga has grown in popularity in the West as a form of exercise that develops strength, flexibility, bodily relaxation, and mental concentration. This branch of yoga traces back its origins especially to Gorakhnath, the legendary 11th-century founder of the Kanphata Yogis, but it is believed to date back at least as far as Patanjali (2nd century BCE or 5th century CE).

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