You and yoga
MANILA, Philippines - Body aches in midlife turned out to be blessings in disguise for me as I was led back to the classical yoga I did as a teen. In 2003, I had the opportunity to rediscover yoga during a teacher-training camp and workshop at the Srinikharin Wirote University in Bangkok facilitated by Dr. Gharotte, Hiroshi and Hideko Aikata, and Kawee Kongpakd. I was quite fortunate because Dr. Gharotte would usually be either in Germany or in South America. It was inspiring to observe how Dr. Gharotte had maintained his health and strength through yoga. He was then 78 years old, but he easily demonstrated the asanas or postures and I really learned a lot from his lectures. I realized that yoga is a lifetime course and that it is an integral body-mind-spirit approach to foster well-being.
Practice, not precepts
During this workshop for teachers, Dr. Gharotte recommended the inclusion of the yoga curriculum into the Thai educational system, taking inspiration from the Indian government’s new education policy on traditional values. He believed that yoga was a means for the education of the whole man because it brought about a change in people’s way of thinking. He said that yoga education should begin in one’s self and that the emphasis should be on practice and not on precepts. Today, Hiroshi and Hideko Aikata continue in the footsteps of Dr. Gharotte to institutionalize yoga in the education and health systems in Thailand.
The following year, I attended the yoga conference for physicians and health practitioners sponsored by the Thai National Health Foundation at the Miracle Grand Hotel in Bangkok. It was good to be with my teachers again. I was also blessed to have personal sessions with Dr. Alicia Souto from Argentina who combined Eutony with yoga for therapeutic purposes. She inspired me to apply an Eastern approach like yoga in the management of stress that was brought about by Western influences. After the asanas and meditation, I would feel rejuvenated and acquire a lot of life-changing insights.
Take it slow and easy
Through the years, I learned that classical yoga is not just an exercise or a technique but a practice based on Patanjali’s principles. The key is the connection to the breath. This will help make the movement very slow and the posture easy. In classical yoga, you know you’re doing it right when it is so comfortable that you forget that you have a body. This is so different from the workouts and weight-training in the gym where they believe that no pain is no gain. When people do their yoga as if they were doing gymnastics or aerobics, they can develop all sorts of aches.
Recently, as one of the Ayurveda patient volunteers organizing a wellness convention with Fr. Jacob Gnalian, I had the chance to invite Hiroshi and Hideko Aikata to grace the forthcoming event and I am so glad that they have responded positively. When Hiroshi presents a knowledge-based approach to yoga during the coming convention, my wish to bring to Filipinos the deeper sense of yoga that I gained from Dr. Gharotte would have been fulfilled.
Hiroshi Aikata was born in Hiroshima in 1959. He pursued South-Asian Studies and majored in Indian studies at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. He then went to India to study yoga with Dr. Gharotte, finishing a Diploma in Yoga Education (DYEd) at the GS College of Yoga in Kaivalyadhama Yoga Institute in 1991. This was founded by Swami Kuvalayananda (1883-1966), a pioneer in scientific research on yoga. Hiroshi also completed his M.A. Philosophy at the Pune University in 1993. He became a scholar of the ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations in New Delhi) in 1994-1996 so he could further study yoga and Indian philosophy.
The thais that bind
In 1997, Hiroshi began working with Thai universities and foundations to implement yoga in the field of education and in the health care system. Currently, he is the co-director of the Thai Yoga Institute under the MCB Foundation in Bangkok. He is also a visiting lecturer in the Department of Philosophy & Religion at Srinakharin Wirot-University. He continues to travel to India often where he is program coordinator of the Lonavla Yoga Institute founded by
Dr. M.L. Gharotte (1931-2005). Hiroshi and Hideko will be flying in from Bangkok for the 1st Ayurveda, Yoga and Wellness Convention and Expo to be held on Sept. 25-26 at the College of Social Work, University of the Philippines (Diliman, Quezon City). This will be a good chance for yoga enthusiasts to learn from them first-hand. Readers may visit www.ayurvedamanila.com or call 09272776171, 717-2824 for inquiries.
