There is no country in the world, except China to match India, when it comes to time-tested ancient sciences. We have Ayurveda, while the Chinese have traditional Chinese herbal medicine. Where we have yoga, they have Tai chi and Chi gong. The Chinese move the prana through Tai chi and Chi gong and Indians move the prana through Yoga.
As such it was a puzzle to many as to why, Yoga – popular all over the world did not find any adherents in China. As per Madame Zhang, a yoga celebrity in China, there were a series of yoga lessons on CCTV (Chinese state television), that was aired in the 1980s. Then the Chinese government’s attention came down heavily on the Falun Gong movement, suspected to be terrorist movement and which had many principles similar to yoga. So the first victim was the yoga television classes. Though the show was suspended indefinitely, it had played an important role in sending the message of yoga out to the Chinese.
Even in those days, there were few yoga schools in many important cities of China. But it was only for the urban elite, who could afford to spend. Until recently, the only options for yoga practitioners were fitness centres in expensive hotels catering to a foreign clientele, and small group practices, advertised only by word of mouth, which were all but impossible to find
But today, in Hong Kong and other parts of China, yoga is marching to a different song. Participants demonstrated Jivamukti Yoga during the Asia Yoga Conference in Hong Kong on June 2, 2007 – a large-scale yoga event which invited 32 renowned yoga teachers from around the world, providing a platform for the general public to learn and deepen their yoga practice through a variety of classes and discussion panels. Today there are dozens of yoga centres in China, often with very odd names like Breeze Yoga & Pilates Centre, Beijing, Kundalini Yoga Asia,Shanghai, Lotus Yoga Guangzhou,Patanjali Yoga College of India at Ninbo city and The Iyengar Yoga Centre at Hong Kong. “I think the fact that Westerners and a lot of Hollywood celebrities are doing yoga is definitely one reason why it's becoming so popular in China,” says Rachel Zhang, editor-in-chief of ‘Fitness’ magazine’s recently launched Chinese edition. “But more important is the high pressure and fast pace of modern times. Yoga teaches you balance – how to breathe and how to calm down.”
As per Yogacharya V V R Ganesh, who has been teaching yoga in Chinese institutions since 2001, and has trained more than 1,000 Chinese yoga enthusiasts, he was invited to China seven years ago by Yoga Master Tan Laoshi, who is the director of the Guangzhou Yoga Association, and a great yogi. At 90 years, he is the oldest living yoga teacher in China, having learned yoga when he was 16 years old from a visiting Indian yogi. “Laoshi,” a title of respect, means “Master Teacher” and meeting Master Tan was a great privilege for Ganesh, because as in India, Chinese are also taught to respect the elders.
Another Indian yoga expert is Mohan Bhandari, who arrived in Beijing in 2004 to set up a yoga school, ‘Yogi Yoga’. It has expanded from a single centre to 31 centres in every major Chinese city, employing 21 Indian teachers from Rishikesh alone. Training fees at the capital’s various yoga schools are steep — between $10 and $20 per session — but the crowds keep coming. One of the Chinese instructors in the Yogi Yoga, Yin Yan says her three centers in Beijing itself have some 1,000 members. Further, the centers have trained some 300 Chinese to impart yoga in other parts of the vast country.
One great handicap for the Indian yoga instructors is that very few of the eager learners know English and one must have an expert translator who will ensure that the instructions are correctly conveyed. Yet another important yoga centre in Beijing is the Yoga Yard. In the year and a half since it opened, almost a dozen Yoga studios have arrived in Beijing, offering everything from hatha to Bikram yoga classes. Lately, there’s been a wave of yoga features in women’s fashion magazines and newspapers like Beijing Youth Daily, the city’s largest daily Chinese-language newspaper. Still,information about yoga is scarce, and misunderstandings rife. “There are a lot of myths about yoga in China,” admits Wexler, an instructor in the Yoga Yard. “When I tell people I teach yoga, they usually ask two questions: ‘Are you able to levitate?’ and ‘Can you be buried underground for a week?’.
One yoga teacher by name Zhu in Hangzhou city confesses that the difficulty in getting instructors from India is a handicap, unlike Western countries, where yoga has a tradition of decades. “In America, maybe you have a teacher who has studied for 20 years, so he has a deep understanding of yoga. We haven’t developed ourselves to that level, so we can’t teach beyond our own practice,” Zhu says. To counteract this handicap, Recently, though, she has brought in yoga instructors from India like yogacharya Dhuruv Dev Singh, translating his teachings to Chinese.
It may have taken the recent celebrity interest, plus a few die-hard yogi expats, to work their magic, but after around 5,000 years of existence just across the border, yoga is finally finding its place in China.
For the new, affluent generation of Chinese, whose lifestyles are increasingly Western, and stressful, yoga is now very much in vogue. As China embraces yoga, yoga will continue to embrace China, in the truest sense of the word ‘yoga.
Maharaja Features
