Ways2Fitness: Bollywood's going the Y-way

Yoga, India’s most famous export to the US and Europe, finds starry followers. BT delves deeper into the issue

TANVI TRIVEDI

According to a survey done recently by a sporting goods manufacturers association, an estimated 9.7 million Americans practice yoga, up from 5.7 million in 1998. In Manhattan, yoga studios are a dime a dozen. And predictably, since it is fashionable to do power yoga in the US, India’s most famous export to Hollywood has also found celeb followers in tinseltown’s haute and happening stars — Aishwarya Rai to Kareena Kapoor to Shilpa Shetty, Sameera Reddy, Katrina Kaif, Esha Deol… the list grows everyday.
    So what makes Mumbai filmdom’s reigning divas switch over to yoga in this age of treadmills and sweaty workout regimes? Most new age fitness gurus and yoga teachers, who train Bollywood beauties to get in perfect shape, feel that besides quick results, doing yoga also heals persistent health problems and without side effects.
    So when Kareena Kapoor was asked to lose seven kilos for a new Yash Chopra film, she did it with the help of power yoga and artistic yoga guru Bharat Thakur. When Shilpa Shetty wanted to promote herself as a fitness diva after her reality show win, she cut an entire yoga video for the US/UK market. Mallika Sherawat openly endorses it. Esha Deol admits that her perfect washboard flat tummy and fab abs owe a lot to yoga, while her mom has been one of yoga’s staunchest endorsers in the film industry, alongwith with superstar Rekha who’d also cut a similar yoga video in the 80s.When Bachchan bahu Aishwarya isn’t doing her workouts, she manages to do yoga. Says Thakur, “As one ages, one can’t regularly attend gyms. So you continue to eat the same food but the workload decreases.
Yoga can be practiced at any time in life.”
    According
    to research,
    Asia will be the next growth area for yoga. Doctors and yogis will come closer to each other. Yoga will be hot on social networking sites, as globally the yoga industry is pegged at $18 billion. When glam babe Shilpa Shetty shot to fame, she turned to Ashtanga Yoga to control spondylysis. Says Thakur, “Yoga concentrates on the body’s endocrinal glands and increases the level of happy hormones in the body. Celebs are in the business of looking good, and yoga helps reduce their stress level.”
    Power yoga and fitness consultant Leena Mogre feels, “The Ashtanga style of practice helps to remain fit.” Mogre, who has trained Katrina Kaif and Sameera Reddy, has introduced dynamic styles of suryanamaskars, tabletops and hip hinge positions, which bring body in alignment. What all yoga gurus agree on, is one can individualise one’s yoga routine, something that actor Sameera Reddy swears by. “I learnt power yoga in New York two years ago. With gymming, your body becomes muscular so power yoga keeps the body supple and helps in losing weight,” says Sameera.
    With celebs showing the
    way, it is a matter of time
    before health-conscious
    Indians embrace the
    healing power of
    yoga in a big
    way.