Nirvana! That’s how the students at Dr Mani Pavitra Yarlagadda’s yoga retreat describe their Woga (underwater yoga) experience. The group tried garbhasana (foetus asana) under water with nothing but a snorkel to help them breathe, their knees tucked up underneath their tummy in a cool pool with silence all around. Perhaps, the serenity at the 100-acre Devala resort in the pristine plantation highlands between Mudumalai and Wayanad in Tamil Nadu, also contributed to that surreal moment in April.
But Pavitra brushes it aside saying it is ‘simply the magic of woga’. Not surprisingly, the 34-year-old yoga guru decided to start a full-fledged Woga course in Hyderabad on her return.
An orthodontist by profession, who also teaches Lamaze and yoga, Pavitra began Woga classes in Hyderabad in May, following a training at Auroville in Puducherry early this year. Needless to say, her Tuesday and Thursday mid-mornings at the Film Nagar Cultural Centre are packed with students curious to know about Woga.
“Woga is a low-impact yoga that is performed in water. From improving balance to alleviating chronic pain, improving concentration to acting as a stress-buster, Woga has many benefits,” says Pavitra. Anyone can do it as there is practically no pressure on any of your joints—the water gives you a sense of weightlessness. Your muscles are relaxed, your mind is calm and your whole body is at peace. It soothes the nervous system as well, promoting overall health. Most importantly, you don’t need to know how to swim,” she says.
Water gear such as pool noodles and straws help the person stay balanced in water and perform even complicated twisting asanas. While beginners do the simple standing asanas with head above the water, the advanced ones, who have mastered their breath, manage to do savasana and other sitting and sleeping asanas in water.
This style of yoga is yet to catch up in India primarily because there are not many instructors. “Eight out of 10 people who workout do it for weight loss, and I can vouch for the fact that some of my Woga students lost 2 kgs in barely 10 days.”
An active user of Facebook, Pavitra’s posts on Woga have piqued even the interest of many busy CEOs who want her to teach them Woga in their personal pool. “However, I feel that one experiences a different and stronger energy when doing Woga in a group,” she says.
Pavitra’s corporate group Woga sessions are often fun with the employees wobbling in the water, splashing with balls as they do their asanas. “Water is a great cleanser and can have a profound effect on your emotions too. I realised its power at Devala resort when a 50-plusser participant, who had been in a rough relationship, emerged out of the water and burst into tears. The water relieved her of the mental trauma. She confessed of having felt emotionally constricted for two years. She was happy that the sessions made her just let go of it,” she says.
Pavitra was a part of the recent International Yoga Day celebrations in Hyderabad and was invited by the Telangana government to promote it. While she is busy running her dental clinic during the day, she takes individual as well as group yoga classes in the morning at her yoga studio, Poorna at Kondapur. “India is a warm country (barring the foothills of Himalayas and up north), and water yoga is catching up fast as a health trend. With even tier two and three cities now coming up with swimming pools and most of them lying vacant in months apart from summer, Woga is finding space and patronage,” she says.
As she prepares her next
session of yoga, Pavitra retreats under the water, joins palms, closes her eyes and smiles while performing tadasana with one foot resting on the other thigh. The best word to describe the mood of the pool is, of course, Nirvana.
Benefits of Water Yoga