International Yoga Day : Celebration in All over the world, Impact on Health and How to Perform

 Let's take a quick look Prime Minister Modi will be leading the national celebration this will be happening from the Vishaka beachfront in Andhra Pradesh alongside a staggering five lakh participants that's happening tomorrow and it's expected to be one of the largest mass yoga demonstrations globally. He'll take part in the common yoga protocol yoga sums are set to be held all over 3.5 lakh locations across the country and this year also sees new public initiatives under yoga unplugged contests like yoga with family the hope is to draw out lacks of old young everyone to the mat via my government and my  platforms okay so what's happening the prime minister has actually previously led international yoga day from iconic locations like the UN headquarters in New York to the Mysore Palace to Shinagar this year he's in Visac's coastal expanse and he will be you know he becomes the global face of  international sort of yoga day and also let's listen into some of the reactions which have been coming in in an anticipation to the day.

Celebration in All over the world : 

All right we'll also bring you for a second the US where the Indian embassy in Washington before going to that we'll hold off and we'll just show you these are yoga sessions ahead of June 21st all taking place at the Lincoln Memorial that's what you're looking at on your screens all right and in the UK British MP  also there hosted a special yoga day event inside the parliament lawmakers and Indian spiritual leaders gathered under the historic paintings of Mark. which he called India's gift to the world okay we showed you US we showed you the UK but yoga isn't only about different countries and large numbers gathering there it's also about accessibility everyone being able to do it that's what our next guest brings to the match. When you were doing this you know 30 years ago starting out who were the kinds of clients you were seeing today is it opened up to just everyone doing yoga tell us more  correct it's very very interesting actually to chart the progression of the popularity of yoga  everywhere in the world and especially in India since you're asking me about yoga here  so yoga in say my grandparents' generation would be your great grandparents generation was  a very popular thing in every Indian home typically you'd find people were doing yoga and then it slowly started kind of  falling by the wayside then in the  late 1980s early 1990s. It  suddenly became very popular in the west especially in the US where there was a real they they suddenly saw that this is an amazing system of exercise and it became infinitely popular in the US and then we people in India said hey this is our thing and and then yoga came back in a big way in India as well and what was what is interesting is when it came back in India it came back as a very wholesome practice because even if we didn't practice yoga it's in the environment we all know what yoga is so yoga is not just that physical exercise like the west was doing it for a long long time it's so, much more than that it's a way of life it's a way that charts your spiritual life it guides you it gives you  steps to follow on how we should live our life it's about emotional stability mental  stability all of that so,  I think it's so great that you said charting the journey is so important because now yoga is so cool now yoga is so India now it's our gift to the world but you were right it skipped a couple of generations and all of us for gyming and wanting to be like bulking up but talking about how adapting to time.

Impact on Health 

 We loved the concept that you do something called chair yoga as well which is something like we can do while sitting so while we were on break for our audiences we switched our chairs especially brought in by her and we're going to be doing a little bit why don't you start by showing us the first one and then we can these are the joint chairs let me show you the first one so the  request for today was chair yoga which is a great thing because, it can be done by everyone yeah how doesn't matter your fitness level your age everybody can do chair yoga and you can modify the posture so the exercise first exercise. I've chosen is the cat cow now in this  what we do is  stand in front of the chair palms flat on the chair seat and you press the lower back down and get it into a concave position this is really good to rid yourself of backache, so for younger people who are sitting at their work desks working for a long time they can just spring up and do this every couple of hours and then with the exhaling breath round up the back hunch it up completely. So, now the spine is really stretched all the vertebrae are really stretched apart and then inhaling we concave the lower back and you're squeezing your vertebrae  close together exhaling you're rounding up the back you're bringing your head down chin towards chest with an inhaling breath we press the lower back down. We lift the chest and we look up and then on the exhaling breath we hunch up round up and we stretch the shoulder blades apart inhaling concave the back squeeze the shoulder blades in together so, you get the idea do this repeatedly for about  half a minute 1 minute a minute and a half. However, how much time you have and the back immediately opens out so  but you mentioned young people sitting in offices we better join you on that show coming across as very swords right now okay time to take off heels time to take off kick off your heels and let's do the second one together so another chair exercise we can do is the proud warrior two now everybody's.

How to Perform : 

 I think most people are familiar with this so usually we do it without a chair here with the help of the chair you stretch one leg out i'm stretching my left leg out bending the right leg so the upper and the lower leg should come at a 90° angle yeah and the other leg is stretched completely on the floor proud warrior 2 also called excellent viraadrasan too the arms are stretched out really. I must say paining on the left so that's clearly Yeah and don't lean the body anyway so the body is perpendicular and then while we hold this we're going to do a little exercise also bend the right arm rest it on the bent right leg and stretch the left arm it should graze the ear and stretch out so what you're doing here is really stretching the left flank of your body you can feel the ribs stretching apart and you're squeezing the right side squeezing the right lung and then reverse back hand on the back leg and the right inner arm grazing your ear and you're stretching back arching back and now you're squeezing the left flank and stretching the right and then toggle between these two so with the exhale lean forward excellent and with the inhale arch back excellent exhaling we lean forward and on the inhale into this gentle back bending kind of position correct so see this can be done by all ages correct every age and it's like the warrior pose that you do standing but made easy with the chair exactly correct great what should we move into now  let's move into another posture and  we we'll do a twist which is also really beneficial so sit with the chair back on your right side. okay and sit a little forward in the chair keep your feet hipwidth apart and then you're going to grab the sides of the chair with both your hands and here you  make sure that the hands are at one level and your right shoulder, your back shoulder shouldn't hunch up keep it pressed down then looking forward inhale become nice and tall lengthen up without letting the lower back arch and with the exhale pull on the chair with your hands and twist your body to the right twist the lower body then the middle body then the upper body and then finally turn and gaze in line with the right shoulder so you'll find that your right hand is strongly resisting and the left hand is pulling back and the spine has got a wonderful lateral twist. so, this is something like you know ringing a towel or a cloth and  a very valuable stretch and then you keep breathing don't hold the breath keep breathing as you're holding and then slowly release and untwist from the top all the way to the bottom and then you must do it on the other side as well can we do it. so, clip over to the other side correct and now feet hipwidth 90° angle between the upper and the lower legs grab your chair on the left side hands at one level look forward first inhaling lengthen up without letting the lower back arch pull the tailbone down and tuck it into the body strongly and then on the exhale  pull with the hands and twist your body first your abdomen, got a nice little crack there yeah then your chest you got a crack excellent and now we're looking in line with the left shoulder so see what this does is all the nerves which are emerging out of your spine on both sides like it's a fabulous stimulation hold for a bit keep breathing and then to release untwist from the top to the bottom head neck shoulders chest and abdomen wow that was nice yeah so you instantly get a knots your body unnots the body just squeezes and brings, it out exactly to the next one then and  then let's do another one and a forward bend is always wonderful h so sitting with our legs a stride and then  bend down and bring your right palm on the floor now if you can't reach see. I have a yoga bolster here or conversely you can use yoga blocks so people who are not very flexible or older people can place their hands on the blocks you can even hold the blocks  lengthwise and then you don't have to bend down that much those who can hand down all the way on the floor and then circle the left arm up slowly all the way till the arm is in line with the shoulder and gaze up at that arm so once again you're getting a wonderful twist in the body you're opening the  left upper chest and you're  giving a chance to these  lymph nodes under the left armpit to drain nicely circle it back so exhale as you circle it up and also look up inhale on the way down excellent let's do it another two times exhaling we raise the arm up up up in line with the shoulder correct inhale we circle it down let's  release and do it on the other side now so left palm flat either on the floor or your fingertips could be down or on a support and we circle the right arm up as we exhale bringing it in line with the shoulder so great for opening up that shoulder girdle shoulder joint also and then circle it back with an exhaling breath slowly take it up and with inhale circle it back and doing it, once again and exhaling it up inhale circle it back so this works as a forward bend also you're bending forward and getting the benefit of that inversion and this is something you can do right there sitting on your chair while you're working you don't have to be wearing your yoga and with the help of a chair you know any age you could do it if you have balancing issues or something then the I like how you don't have to push yourself to try and perfect the pose in the first time you can use help you can get something if you don't have blocks in office just use a you know pile of books maybe just keep it there, use that as just a bit of an elevation to make it easy for you right exactly correct. I want yoga so modifiable which is so fantastic i do want to ask you for people who are 60 plus but who have not given love to their fitness their whole life um their bodies probably feel stiff and they want to take those first few steps. What's your advice where does one start you  just dive straight into it join a class or  join an easy class a beginner's class and just do as much as you can and sit down when you can't do anymore you learn a lot by just observing also And the the body is so forgiving it you know just keeps on getting better so regularity is the magic word if you're regular you'll keep changing and anytime in your life you you hear about so many people who started yoga in their 60s i'm 63 today i've been doing it for over 30 years now and  but people have started really late in life also and they say it's amazing how they have improved in every way can I ask you to sort of debunk this theory for me a lot of people think that yoga is like golf like for old people it's slow it's not easy for young people need more than just yoga is that true no no no no not at all yoga is you can that that's the beauty of yoga that you can make it excessively difficult and you can modify it and make it easier and easier and it can suit you in every stage of your life even strength training it can cover strength training absolutely oh wow absolutely for example you could use  like in my class. I use light weights  2 kg weights but you're also doing a balancing posture you're using the weights also so it becomes a very very  interesting exercise and then in yoga it's like  it's body calisthenics basically you're picking up your own body weight right in so many postures you're picking your own body weight and  see in a gym you can really bulk up so you don't you don't you can't bulk up like that but you build internal muscle strength definitely so,  I would say it's great for strength training you don't need any exercise yoga  not just for the old then not at all not at all okay wait can I ask you one last question before we let you go stepping slightly away from yoga but staying in the in the region of being healthy  so many questions around protein women consuming protein especially when you're doing something like yoga like exercise. I just want to know what you do how you look after yourself how particular you are about things like that especially because I feel for many when they're starting on their fitness journey taking care of yoga taking care of food on top of that then seeing that your protein is enough it's a lot you know so what are your sort of stages when someone's just like let me get into fitness let me get into yoga yeah protein is something which is very talked about in today's times and there are many different  theories about protein a lot of people say don't worry about it at all you don't need so much protein if you go on the other extreme and you are over protein yourself there are lots of  detrimental downsides of that as well so what you a very sensible way to go by it is see in every meal you should have three meals in the day and in every meal see that you have protein in every meal m I'm a vegetarian but I  eat eggs and say for breakfast I've got my eggs and some other stuff I've got my protein for my midday meal I've got dal or something I've got some protein I'm eating badams and all in the day I've got my protein and in there there's tofu there's  so many other things. If you have your chas and your so there are two games  to be cracked here consistency is the name of the game and balance is the name of the game both in terms of body and in terms of how you eat your food as well and life and life yeah and music and all of it this has been an incredible episode thank you so much for coming in and showing us and sharing all of that with our audiences it's a good note for all of you to get your  get your chairs out and try some of these poses .