Nearly every third person you bump into nowadays has had a brush with some form of fitness. The rising level of awareness to keep fit has fuelled a demand for newer ways of exercising. And gyms across the City are trying to match the demand by giving a variety of options for their members. One such form of exercise gaining popularity is ‘power yoga’.
The young consider yoga boring and only the highly motivated are able to enjoy a 90-minute session contouring their bodies into the various asanas, practiced in silence under the watchful eyes of a yoga guru.
Power yoga is a go-between. It lets you reap the benefits of yoga as you enjoy a power-packed 60-minute session that gives a complete workout for mind and body. All this in the fun zone of your gym.
Yoga guru B H Kumara Reddy, is a Science graduate. He was a basketball player too, representing the State till early-1990s. “But age is not on your side always. I could not continue and took to yoga to stay fit. I was highly influenced by BKS Iyengar, whose teachings have guided me all these years. I started taking independent yoga classes in 1998,” he says. 
Reddy practices Hatha Yoga, which translates into ‘the power of the sun and the moon’. “Yoga itself means ‘to bind together mind, body and soul’. Our bodies have a combination of hot and cool energies; the right side is governed by the sun (hot) and the left side by the moon (cool). Binding these energies will give optimum benefits for an individual’s health,” he says.
What kind of benefits, we ask. Reddy explains that yoga has wonderful benefits on a person’s health and that is now a fact accepted the world over. Celebrities all over the world too have endorsed yoga to keep fit. “Yoga helps you become a complete individual.
Your attitude to everything changes. Simple breathing exercises itself can energise your body, so imagine how much more you can reap by practicing a few asanas. Yoga helps tackle habits like smoking and drinking, helps you overcome disorders and restores a healthy balance in the body,” he adds, as he cites his own example of how yoga helped him kick the habit of smoking.
But yoga as such is still not popular among youngsters who gym, we point out. To which, Reddy says, “We have to go with the flow.
So I have chosen a set of asanas from Hatha Yoga, simplified them and brought them under what is called ‘power yoga’, offered in gyms. My one-hour classes at Energy gym will have suryanamaskara, some simple but effective asanas and pranayama. They are designed for all age groups and can be performed by anyone aged 8–80 years, irrespective of gender or fitness levels.”
Kumara Reddy’s power yoga classes are being held thrice a week at Energy gym, #8, Ursu Bhavan, Jasma Bhavan Road, Millers’ Tank, Vasanthnagar. For details contact: 41131726/ 98454-57157.
