Even though the government has given its nod to start yoga institutes, many trainers have decided to stick to holding online classes, and not conduct sessions in a group or in institutes until the number of COVID-19 cases comes down in the city. Since yoga involves a lot of breathing exercises and techniques, it may pose risks to practitioners, while doing the asanas while wearing masks is not advisable, yoga instructors and institute owners told CE.
Even students feel safer to continue practising yoga at home, said Suriya Krishna, a yoga teacher and owner of Krishna Su Yoga in HSR Layout. According to Krishna, when the government allowed reopening of gyms and yoga centres, he conducted a survey among his students, wherein many of them said they would prefer to attend online classes for some more time.
"I conducted a survey among 185 students, of which only 30 per cent said they are willing to attend physical classes in a group. Even among those, only three have been coming, while the rest are opting for online classes. Pranayama deals with breathing basics and helps in increasing the lung capacity and also boosting immunity, but due to the breathing, it can pose a problem to the person exercising nearby. Maintaining distance is of utmost importance, and so online classes remains a good idea for now," she said, adding that yoga has been helping many people who have been feeling stressed out during the pandemic.
Arunima Singh Deo, who conducts yoga classes in Bellandur, said, "I need to think about students’ safety, and hence we are continuing online classes. Yoga cannot be performed while wearing a mask, and so it is best to postpone offline group sessions for some more time."
Virtual classes also bring about more regular attendees, according to Dr HP Bharathi, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jindal Naturecure Institute. "We haven’t opened our institute yet. Actually through online classes, we have seen many students attending properly or else many tend to miss classes physically. Many students have even joined from abroad," he said.