Home |Events | Broadcast Schedule | Program Archive | Yoga Styles | Reading | Links | Donation | Contact Us | in service to motivate, educate & illuminate ! Yoga in the News! Yoga's Next Twist... Turning a Mystic Discipline Into an Olympic Competition By JOHN KRICH May 2, 2008 New Delhi Bidding to host the 2020 Summer Olympics hasn't yet begun, but the Indian Olympic Association has proclaimed it plans a pitch for New Delhi. That's encouraging news for a small movement in India that's looking to raise the country's greatest contribution to the world of fitness to a higher podium: They want yoga in the Olympics. Competitive yoga? It isn't as great a stretch as it seems. "Since ancient times, there have always been competitions among yogis, just like sword fighting or archery," says Gopal Ji, son of a famed yoga guru, president of the International Yoga Sport Federation, the Yoga Confederation of India, and a Deputy Program Advisor of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Competitive yoga is a sport in some Indian schools today. Less known is that in most years since 1989 there has been a World-Wide Yoga Championship, held last year in Mexico City. Representatives from around 20 countries competed for supremacy in athletic, artistic and rhythmic yoga, with India walking off with the World-Wide Yoga Cup. To Mr. Gopal, the Olympics case is clear. The Korean martial art taekwondo is in the Olympics, he notes -- it began as a demonstration sport at the Seoul Olympics of 1988 and became a full event 12 years later -- though it has far fewer participants than yoga. And that's just the start of his list of Olympic events that yoga surpasses. "If rhythmic gymnastics can be included, why not yoga?" he asks. To bolster his case to this reporter, Mr. Gopal brought out three members of India's national team -- then preparing for last June's Mexico City competition -- to demonstrate their Olympic-caliber skills. First on a living-room rug, then in a backyard just blocks from the stadium where India will host the 2010 Commonwealth Games as a possible warm-up to the Olympics, the three teens in spandex outfits struck a series of poses seemingly impossible for the human spine to sustain -- feats of flexibility as dazzling as any seen on a diving board or set of parallel bars. The athletes' commitment sounds Olympian, too. After demonstrating a position in which she twists her feet behind her neck while balancing on one hand, 15-year-old Adyta Nigam, laid out the training routine she's followed since age 7: a morning practice that starts at 5:30, then an additional two hours in the afternoon at school. (Many Indian schools offer yoga as part of physical education.) She even had a sound bite suitable for an Olympics TV profile: Ms. Nigam said she pursues yoga to "perfect my health status and get a chance to travel around the world." The other two team members struck synchronized poses as required by the "artistic pair" competition of the World-Wide Championship. At the championship, yogic athletes show a series of compulsory and optional postures for 120 to 150 seconds each, alone or in pairs and sometimes accompanied by music. Judges score on flowing movement, steadiness and perfection of line and, in the words of Mr. Gopal, "a lack of stress and strain on the face." As in gymnastics, a perfect score is 10 -- and tough to attain. Gautam Sarkar, 36, a Calcutta native who coaches these three young athletes, says there are so many children trying out for competitive yoga that some have to be turned away. Of the 5,000 who are good enough to compete in regional and high-school meets, he says, about 250 reach the highest level. The contingent for Mexico City was about 100 strong. As the ancient home of yoga, India is a power, but other countries have produced world-wide champions as well; Argentina, Uruguay and Ukraine have used "great teachers and a strong gymnastic background," as Mr. Gopal explains, to move into the first echelon. There are also some professional competitions. But giving medals out for yoga offends some Indians. As a growing number rediscover the ancient practice -- leading to growth of yoga-school chains and yoga masters with televisions shows -- some would rather have it remain a personal and spiritual tool. Yoga began as a Hindu discipline involving not just the postures but also deep meditation and controlled breathing, aimed at achieving liberation of the self. Among devotees both inside and outside India, there is discomfort at the idea of its spawning winners and losers. "Something so beautiful for one's inner peace shouldn't be turned competitive," says Bharat Thakur, one of India's most popular yogis, who has his own television show and chain of studios. "This can only end up with people being misled." Many Indian gurus worry that as yoga has boomed, its ideals are being fused with Western notions centered on acquiring status, physical attractiveness or some edge in the workplace. The California-based yoga master Bikram Choudhury -- founder of the international chain school Bikram Hot Yoga -- declares on his Web site that yoga isn't just about "sitting and meditating." Mr. Choudhury, too, staged yoga competitions as part of a "Yoga Expo" in California. Unlike most yoga gurus, he rose to prominence through competitive yoga -- he was an All-Indian Yoga Champion at age 13. Mr. Choudhury was not available for comment. In its support of competitive yoga, the Yoga Confederation of India has found a particular opponent in Deyanand Dongaonkar, Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities. In 2006, Prof. Dongaonkar pushed his organization's advisory board on athletics to ban yoga competitions. Calling yoga a "science of spirituality" and "way of life," he argues that it can't be turned into a competition because there are no objective standards for judging. Referring to sporting proponents, he says, "I would like to know their guru because this is not a sporting activity." Still, the ban is not watertight. Individual colleges in India are still free to make their own decisions about holding events, he says. And while the advisory board's vote was unanimous, he concedes that last year some members brought the ban up for reconsideration. Mr. Gopal is hopeful that his confederation can at least put on yoga demonstrations at coming Asian Games. He says he has petitioned the International Olympic Committee as well, and should India win its 2020 Olympic bid, yoga competitions could be mounted as unofficial exhibitions for the international community at the Games. Host countries were once able to add an official event to the Olympics, which is how judo made the jump in Tokyo in 1964. They could also promote particular sports by making them demonstration events -- which over the decades meant exposure not just for baseball and taekwondo but also Icelandic glima wrestling (Stockholm, 1912) and Basque pelota, a sport for two players, a ball and a wall (Mexico City, 1968). The right to include demonstration sports in Olympic programs was abolished after the 1992 Games. Still, China will be staging an unofficial event in the martial art of wushu at the Beijing Games this year. Mr. Gopal's confederation has won recognition as an organization within the Olympic movement, says Randhir Singh, who represented India as a shooter in six Games and is now an IOC member and Secretary General of the Indian National Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Asia. "Many IOC members and their wives now practice yoga," he says. "It is very beneficial for Olympic athletes' training as well, especially sports requiring great concentration like shooting, archery or high jumping." While Mr. Singh concedes he is "not that clear about the structure or rules of the competition," he adds, "We would fully support this and definitely push for it. I think we should use all available channels to advance yoga." Hundreds of young hopefuls like Ms. Nigam and her schoolmates are waiting in the wings, eager for the go-ahead to do their "Salutes to the Sun" postures in an Olympic showcase. In answering his critics, Mr. Gopal argues that competition spreads the yoga message. And given the benefits of yoga for managing stress and fighting cardiovascular problems, angina and other ailments, he adds -- citing research by Indian medical institutes, in which he participated -- what could be wrong with that? "Sporting competition helps popularize yoga among young people who might find it boring, helping them to grow mentally and physically," he says. "There is no harm to yoga's true message in that. What is spirituality, after all, if not inner strength? And how will that lion be kept inside if the cage itself is not made strong?" --John Krich is a Bangkok-based writer. Write to John Krich at john.krich@wsj.com Yoga For Peace, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Yogic Principles, Philosophy & Practice. Namaste'