THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Her father had always told her to ‘never ever be scared and go ahead and get your purpose done’. This is what Iranian ‘sports yogi’ Ziba Shahsavand has been doing ever since.
Today she sits proud, with a bunch of Iranian kids, and hoping to realise their dream of being recognised in the 8th Asian Yoga Sports Championship.
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Ziba is the coach of the Iranian contingent of yoga participants which had arrived to participate in the championship. For Ziba and their team, the journey hasn’t been easy and still isn’t. In a land where learning or teaching yoga is not much encouraged, their representation and resolve to participate is a revolution of sorts.
It was a book on yoga that caught the attention of Ziba. “It was the myriad set of Asanas that got me intrigued and made me pursue yoga,” Ziba says in Persian. Tannaz Rasooli, an Iranian participant translates it. Ziba was always into sports, be it gymnastics, horse riding or Wushu. But at the age of seventeen, she discovered yoga. And she severed ties with all other sports, delving more into yoga.
One would be surprised at the team’s familiarity with the mantras and Om, Shiva and Shakti. “Oh, we do listen to mantras, meditate and chant Om before every yoga practice,” Tannaz says and tilts her head, to show her earrings, a silver-toned earring crafted in the shape of an ‘Om’. “Yoga has changed everything about me,” she says.
“It has aided me in becoming a good person. Yoga changes you mentally, spiritually, and how you speak and listen,” says Tannaz, a biomedical engineer working in Tehran. For her, yoga brings a sense of peace and harmony in her being.
There is no support on any front and the struggle is still on for yoga enthusiasts in Iran. “They don’t accept yoga, but we do it because we love yoga,” says Tannaz. “The dream is to bring more and more Iranians into yoga championship,” adds Tannaz who will be participating in the artistic yoga category.