YOGA IN COLLEGE
WHY SHOULD COLLEGE STUDENTS PRACTICE YOGA?
Aside from the obvious benefits, Yoga offers many advantages specifically to students.
Stress: Students have to deal with assignments, deadlines, papers and exams, which can be really stressful. Yoga can be a great way to alleviate this stress.
Concentration: High concentration can ensure that a student gets most of the work done in the least time. Regular practice of yoga develops high levels of concentration.
Convenience: Yoga is one of the most inexpensive exercises. All you need is a mat and you're all set! Many students have limitations as to how much they can spend on workouts. Yoga allows us to get our body in the best shape with absolutely no equipment apart from our body!
Isn't it just the perfect way to have our cake and eat it too?
Not time bound: For most of the students, the main issue is time. They find it very difficult to go to incorporate workout sessions in their schedules, because the working hours of the gym clash with the hours of their study! Yoga gives them the flexibility (coincidence?) to choose the time of workout. They can literally roll out at the mat at 3am, practice yoga for a half hour and go to sleep.
Enhanced Self Image: Too many students struggle with body issues. Yoga can really help tone their bodies, increase their self-esteem and make them feel much better about themselves.
Calm Mind: A student's life is full of activity, which causes the mind to be scattered and restless. Yoga enables students to spend some time for self-betterment and relaxation. It is an absolutely great way to calm the mind and take a break from the bustling college lifestyle.
​
WHY SHOULD EACH COLLEGE HAVE A
YOGA CLUB?
I am applying to college this year and I strongly believe that each college should have a yoga club for its students.
As I mentioned earlier, yoga can have a deep impact on shaping one's college life positively.
One of the great things about yoga is that it can be practiced alone and at any time of the day. Despite this, I believe that a yoga club can prove to be a much more effective and enjoyable way to practice yoga.
Firstly, a club can motivate students to give Yoga a shot. Everyone knows Yoga is good for him/her, but very few actually practice it. A yoga club can get students to actually get cracking on the "best exercise possible!"
Secondly, it is very important to practice yoga under the guidance of someone knowledgeable. I have seen too many people who had been practicing wrong postures for their entire lives! It took them a lot of effort to change their habits once they were told that their posture was wrong. To avoid this and to prevent injuries, it is extremely necessary that beginners learn yoga from an expert.
A yoga club is a great way to teach yoga to multiple students at the same time.
A yoga club can serve as an amazing platform to bring together like-minded students, who could together pursue several yoga-related activities.
Some people, especially the new gen, find yoga to be too slow for their liking when they do it alone. A yoga club can make the process much more enjoyable since they would be practicing with friends!
It is a great way to socialize and reap the amazing benefits of yoga simultaneously.
HOW WILL I CONTRIBUTE TO THE YOGA COMMUNITY IN MY COLLEGE?
The first thing I will do on entering the college is check whether it has a yoga club.
If yes, I will sign up immediately. If not, I will found one myself.
Once I make sure that there is a functioning yoga club, I'll begin with my elaborate plan.
So here's my plan:
I believe that different students have different problems - some have a tough time dealing with stress, some find it hard to concentrate, some want to get into better shape and almost all want to feel good about themselves.
I want to create focus groups that target exactly these problems and assign a set of asanas which help in reducing the problems students are dealing with and which are suited to their individual body types.
The Yoga club would also have sessions for athletes. The athletes make up an important part of the student body at any college and need a different kind of training as compared to the non-athletes. Their sessions would be focused on extensive stretching and handling the pressures of the tournaments.
As a yogi, I know that Yoga is not just about body postures, but consists of eight limbs: yama (social behavior), niyama (inner discipline), asana (posture), pranayam (breath control), pratyahar (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (focused concentration) , dhyaan (meditation), samaadhi (superconsciousness). I will try to bring in as many of the eight elements as I can into the club. (Why not all? The elements "Withdrawal of the Senses" and "Superconsciousness" are extremely hard to achieve. Superconsciousness or pure bliss are the ultimate goals of Yoga, which even yogis take a long time to attain)
Sometimes, repeating the same set of postures can get monotonous. To avoid this, I want to keep alternating the sets and styles too, which means that one day it will be power yoga, another day maybe zumba coupled with yoga.
I want the yoga club to be a socializing platform as well. I wish to conduct events like Yoga-Day Celebration, the Anniversary of Yoga Guru Iyengar, etc at the college yard. All students would be welcome to attend these events.
If possible, I would like to have a yoga-immersion weekend once every six months. The weekend would be one filled with yoga, spirituality and peace.
Most Importantly, I will be doing all this for free. Some of my friends who are in college told me how keen they were on joining yoga, but the yoga centers or clubs in their colleges demanded hefty fees. I personally believe that yoga truly is a gift to humanity and I have been lucky enough to discover it at a young age. I believe this is my chance to give back and contribute to the society in my little way.
​
There's a myth that "Yoga is boring" which boils my blood every time I hear it. I hope that with my idea of a yoga club, I will able to do clear this amazingly huge misconception and show how incredibly exciting and energizing yoga can be!
I've seen some real good progress in the people who were a part of my project and I believe that college is the best time to launch a bigger version of the project. I have been working on a better and more generalized model for a long time now and I'm extremely keen and excited to get on with it!
​
HOW DO I KNOW MY PLAN WILL WORK OUT?
I honestly don't. Although I have a little knowledge about college clubs, I don't even know exactly how it all works. But this "not knowing" encourages me even further to try out my plans.
Another reason I believe my pursuit will be successful is that I have tried mini-versions of all the activities I've mentioned above in the past and they all have been pretty successful.
I got the idea of creating focus groups through the project I did in my community.
My brother is a national level table tennis player and I've conducted some pre and post-tournament sessions for him, which he claims to have been really helpful. So we could say that I have a certain experience in training athletes. Through these sessions itself I realized that the training for athletes differs from the one for
non-athletes.
My Yoga coach, Manali Deo, always lays emphasis on practicing all the eight limbs of yoga, not just the postures. It is because of her that I know how integral the other seven limbs of yoga are. I now believe that the practice of yoga should always be introduced as a whole.
As to the events and celebrations, I have organized a yoga day celebration at my yoga class and some small yoga events for my family and close relatives. I have seen that these events tend to be a great way to get together and socialize with friends and family. I know that organizing these events makes me really happy and I've been told that attending these events made my friends also happy :)
I have conducted a yoga immersion weekend for myself and I have to admit, it was simply uh-mazing! I put on some gentle music, scented candles, and dim lights. I rolled out the mat at dawn and performed yoga once at sunrise, once in the afternoon and once in the evening. I had all-natural meals the entire weekend, which means I basically had fruits or slightly roasted vegetables. Usually due to school and classes, I don't get enough time to sleep. But during this weekend, I slept for 9-10 hours! I felt really light, well-rested and joyous after the weekend! Simply writing this has made me relive that magical weekend and excited for the next one. If there's a chance that my fellow college mates can enjoy a similar experience, I would love to give it a try.
Lastly, I love helping people. No, I'm not bragging. Just the prospect of making someone smile makes me smile! And obviously, I deeply love Yoga. So by founding a yoga club, I'm basically doing the two things I love.
Wouldn't it be silly to take money for something I love doing? It's like Monica asking for money to clean her own apartment (F.R.I.E.N.D.S reference) or Sheldon asking for money to be obsessive! (TBBT reference)
​
I absolutely can't wait to go to college!