The team from West Bengal emerged as the overall champion of the event, which saw around 800 participants from 22 States coming forward to test their expertise in the ancient exercise form.<\/p>\n
Haryana and Jharkhand followed as first and second runners up. The contest items included Yogasana, artistic yoga, artistic pair yoga, rhythmic yoga and free flow yoga dance.<\/p>\n
Unconventional forms<\/p>\n
The unconventional forms of yoga under the tournament would go a long way towards popularising the exercise, said Priya Antony, a participant from Kollam who holds a Masters degree in yoga.<\/p>\n
\u201cItems like free flow yoga dance and artistic yoga bring in an element of fun and creativity, making it more attractive to the masses,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Priya and her partner Harikrishnan S. were placed fourth in the artistic pair event. However, not all proponents of yoga are happy with this turn of events.<\/p>\n
Balakrishnan Swami, president of the Yoga Association of Kerala, is of the opinion that making yoga a competitive sport is a deviation from its essence as a spiritual practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoga is practised to enhance the \u2018Sattva guna\u2019, characterised by serenity and virtuousness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rajo guna<\/p>\n
\u201cBut by competing in it, you bring out the \u2018Rajo guna,\u2019 which is the quality of passion, activity as well as self-centredness,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, the association has decided to support competitive events in the light of recent trends, though a distinction between competitive and usual practice will be maintained, he said.<\/p>\n
The tournament was organised by the Yoga Association of Kerala, under the auspices of the Yoga Federation of India.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pushing the boundaries of the practice of yoga through events such as free flow yoga dance and rhythmic yoga, the the First Federation Yoga Sports Cup that concluded here on Sunday proved to be a one-of-a-kind event. The team from West Bengal emerged as the overall champion of the event, which saw around 800 participants […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54560"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}