SHE believes that exercise is not only for attaining a beautiful body but also for relaxation. And with ‘Natya Vyayama’, a fusion of yoga, aerobics, dance and floor exercise, she says she has achieved her goal. Geetha Mathen is a bundle of energy. She was a model, model coordinator, education consultant and what not. But now she is putting all her might into popularising ‘Natya Vyayama’. “It’s purely my own concept and I have been working on it for the last 18 years. It was born out of my passion for dance and music,” says Geetha.
As a child, she says, she was passionate about dance. And as she grew up she got hooked on to aerobics.
Geetha was an aerobics instructor for many years in Kottayam. Her stint with aerobics happened during a visit to Dubai.
But she was always eager to do something more interesting, traditional and Indianised and that was how she hit upon this concoction. “I wanted to reduce weight. I was about 80 kg when I started ‘Figure and Beauty’, a health club-cum-beauty parlour, in Kottayam. Everybody used to make fun of me saying that I was not fit to be an aerobics trainer. But I took it as a challenge,” recollects Geetha.
Within three months she lost a lot of weight and maintained that for years. “It was educator and women’s right activist Mary Roy, a friend of mine, who advised me to slow down as I was getting older. I then started working on a fusion of yoga and aerobics, which was not too fast and not too slow,” says Geetha. She started yoga classes after getting training from a yoga trainer from Shivananda Ashram.
“She was with me for quite a long time,” says Geetha.
In 2006 she was invited to accompany children from Pallikoodam to Wayland Public School, Boston, for a student exchange programme. “I launched ‘Natya Vyayama’ there and it was appreciated by all the students.
That was a great encouragement for me,” says Geetha.
An easy and relaxing way to sweat it out while listening to soothing music, ‘Natya Vyayama’ can be enjoyed by anyone, says Geetha, and it leaves you full of energy and freshness for the whole day.
“Believe it or not you will look much younger. This is exactly why Hema Malini looks only 16 on her 60th birthday.
She mentioned that it was dance that kept her young,” says Geetha with a smile.
She came to Kochi with her daughter to pursue her studies. While her daughter enrolled for MBA at Rajagiri college, Geetha joined up for Master of Science in Counselling and Psychology.
Along with her studies she started taking Natya Vyayama classes.
Now she takes one hour classes from Monday to Friday in the morning at Gallery OED on Warriam Road. “We wear shoes and track suits and dance to soft Indian music with table beats,” says Geetha who has 14 students in the age group 12 to 70.
“Natya Vyayama is meant for all age groups and you need not be a dancer to enrol,” she says and guarantees that after attending a month-long class you will lose at least 3 kg. To know more about Natya Vyayama call Geetha at 9895686015.
manuvipin@epmltd.com
