She can deftly curl into any yoga asana, be it the 12 postures of Surya Namaskar or the complex Ekapada Chakra asana.
Young and feisty, Padmashree Mohanty’s yoga skills and flexibility can leave anyone awestruck. In less than five minutes, the 16-year-old Odia girl from Cuttack can swiftly twist, turn and stretch to present as many as 20 yoga asanas.
A Class XI student of Kendriya Vidyalaya NTPC-Kaniha, Padmashree has won several accolades for achieving perfection in Yoga.
This week, she represented Odisha in the 50th Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) National Sports Meet and won a silver medal in Yoga.
Last year, she had won gold in the same competition. She is also the only girl in Under-19 category to have represented Odisha in the maximum number of Yoga competitions across the country.
Two years back, she had represented India in the first South Asian Yoga Championship and won the third position.
The international championship was held in Kathmandu, Nepal and Padmashree was among five children selected in the 14 to 18 years junior category to represent India.
While she initially started learning gymnastics at Indoor Stadium in Cuttack at the age of six, she had to quit after the coaching centre for girls was shifted to Sundargarh.
“My coach suggested that I learn yoga in Cuttack,” says Padmashree. After enrolling in Kendriya Vidyalaya, she started attending camps being organised once in a year by KVS at Ranchi, Bokaro, Haryana and Jamshedpur where she met her Yoga trainer Chandan Jha.
While she attends the camp for a month, the rest of the year she practises by watching tutorials on Youtube.
Her day starts at 4.30 am with multiple sets of Surya Namaskar and Pranayam followed by asanas. In the last decade, Padmashree claims, she has never missed her morning routine of Yoga.
She makes it a point to practise for two hours everyday and has so far mastered asanas like Koundanyasana, Badha Padmasana, Brischikasana, Likarasana, Gokhil Likarasana, Padma Mayurasanna, Dhanurasana, Gendamirindasana, Dimbasana, Kukutasana, Astabakrasana, Sirsasana, Bajrasana, Paschimatanasana, Ustrasana, Bhujangasana and hand and leg balance.
Padmashree also had a stint with reality TV shows. She had performed in Odia reality TV show ‘Gaon Akhada’ last year and prior to that, she was selected for the third round of audition for India’s Got Talent where she showcased her expertise in various asanas.
“Yoga has made me more disciplined in life,” says the champ who had won the Yoga challenge of completing 108 rounds of Surya Namaskar in 2011 when she was just nine.
The same year, she was third in 29th National Yogasana Championship in Hyderabad, conducted by Yoga Federation of India.
She feels Yoga is not just a physical exercise. She now wants to study about yoga’s origin and train children in orphanages on Yoga asanas.
Yoga apart, Padmashree is also an expert in Malkhamb, gymnastics and swimming. However, she laments that Odisha does not have international standard coaching facility in yoga.
“Unlike other sporting activities, yoga practitioners do not get any financial support from the government,” she says.
Padmashree credits her parents, Subhananda and Pranati Mohanty, for her success. Her parents suggest that people should encourage children to take up sports.
“It helps them concentrate better in studies and stand out from the crowd, “ says Pranati who is a school teacher in Kendriya Vidyalaya NTPC-Kaniha.