From ancient spiritual practice to competitive global sport, Yogasana is now aiming for a place in the Olympic Games, with stakeholders targeting inclusion as a medal discipline by 2036.
Backed by the Indian government and buoyed by growing international participation, Yogasana will feature as a demonstration sport at this year’s Asian Games while its first-ever World Championship, involving 75 countries, is scheduled to be held in Ahmedabad from June 4 to 8.
"But even if the Games were to be held in Timbuktu, we are working to ensure that Yogasana is a medal sport in 2036," World Yogasana vice president Udit Sheth asserted in an interview to PTI, referring in jest to the fifth century city in Mali that is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The sport has already secured a place in the 2030 Commonwealth Games as one of the two indigenous disciplines proposed by India. According to Sheth, the next target is to feature as a demonstration sport at the 2032 Olympics.
World Yogasana currently has 40 affiliates globally and needs at least 50 affiliates across three continents to meet the International Olympic Committee's recognition criteria.
Sheth, the Founder and Managing Director of sports infrastructure company SE TransStadia, said the idea of turning yoga into a competitive sport emerged after discussions with the Ministry of Ayush in 2019.
"In 2019, I got a call from the Ayush Ministry that we need to federate Yoga sport. Then we had a massive discussion with all the gurus. And yoga can't be packaged, you can't measure breathe and the pranayams, the kriyas but the asanas part, we said we will make it into a competitive sport," he said.
Yogasana’s scoring structure is inspired by gymnastics, with artistic and rhythmic categories for groups and pairs apart from individual competitions. However, unlike gymnastics, competitors are judged on their ability to hold difficult postures while maintaining calmness and composure.
"The competition is inward, it's with yourself," explained Sheth.
"This is one of the toughest sports because it is not only strength and flexibility, it is also balance and stillness. It's harder to be still then to be in motion because inertia carries you when you are in motion but over here stability counts.
"There is a holding time. So we measure all of that, we have nine judges around the FOP (Field of Play). We eliminate the highest and the lowest score and then do an average," he said.
Sheth said the sport has witnessed rapid growth since receiving government recognition in 2020.
"After the world championships, a league is coming up in September this year. In India, Yoga is now in 700 districts and we have more than three lakh athletes registered with Yogasana Bharat.
"It is a part of the Khelo India Games, the National Games, and now a part of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA). So very soon this will climb towards the Olympic vision," he said.
According to Sheth, Yogasana has found increasing acceptance in West Asia, Europe and Africa, while Canada is among its affiliates in the Americas.
"The Islamic countries would not accept yoga due to religious reasons but yogasana as a sport is something that they are keen to explore. India has been at the forefront in sending trainers wherever there is a demand for yoga gurus," Sheth said.
"The idea is that we should be relevant and big enough for the IOC to be interested in yogasana's inclusion instead of us having to pursue them with repeated requests. So we would like to have at least 90 affiliates globally," he added.
## Anti-Doping
World Yogasana says it follows the World Anti-Doping Agency's regulations despite not yet being an official signatory to the WADA code.
"We follow all the rules of NADA (National Anti-Doping Code) and WADA. We are doing workshops with athletes. Only thing is that we don't have benchmarks because we are starting the sport from scratch but we tell them what to eat, what to not eat, not to take just any protein powder which is available.
"You have to buy it from the NADA-certified places. Also what happens here is that eating at the right time and right thing becomes most critical because your body can't be flexible if you are full," Sheth said.
"The diet is very different for males and females because their flexibility changes after puberty. If you do a wrong asana, it can also stunt something in your body so you have to be very careful from a physical point of view, mental point of view. This is a very complicated sport," he insisted.