Yoga has been our country’s preferred medium of attaining fitness since times immemorial. However, with new and more exciting fitness fads entering the market through Western channels, yoga is increasingly battling the perception of being an ‘easy’ and relaxing form of exercise—not one geared towards weight loss or achieving fitness goals. Paloma, a yoga teacher based in Mumbai, dispels these notions clearly.
Claiming that yoga is the universal answer to holistic well-being, she believes it is the ideal medium to promote physical agility while also enhancing mental wellness. Especially when it comes to women, yoga plays an essential role in keeping them healthy in the long run. And if women are healthy, it bodes well for global health both for present as well as future generations. Paloma claims, “Today, women are coming forth in every walk of life as a strong force to reckon with. At Paloma Yoga, we focus particularly on women’s health while looking at the effective reversal of many women related issues like breast cancer and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). My work is targeted towards the well-being of all my students, by building a balance between the body and mind in the most natural and organic way possible.” Yoga is a great way to remove stress, resulting in overall peace, harmony and a feeling of deep detoxification.
Paloma goes on to stress that yoga is a practise of emotional, physical and spiritual transformation. The physical part might take a long time to manifest, but it is a process, as with everything in life. Just as sculptors cannot create beautiful works of art in a day, yoga needs time and patience to allow you to look your physical best. When done correctly, yoga is the ideal medium to address both weight loss as well as adequate toning of the muscles of the body. Classical and hatha yoga practises require very agile movements from the body. These strong, even masculine, yoga postures work well on reducing body fat, burning them down with effective strength and movement. Further, the hatha and vinyasa yoga series are also aimed at weight loss—to get the body in shape while allowing it to build strength and stamina. These practices are especially known to do wonders for the core.
While explaining the effectiveness of the movements, Paloma says, “Anything that is methodical, technical, and result-oriented is slow and gradual by its very nature. Yoga is a subject that falls under this category. It is an alternative science that positively affects each and every bone joint, ligament and tendon simultaneously. We must remember that the body is made of millions and billions of particles and multiple organs, hence the practise of yoga takes a certain amount of time to show the desired result, but rest assured that throughout the process, you will feel a positive impact on your body.”
When asked about yoga’s efficacy at building one’s immunity, Paloma wholeheartedly affirms that as a practice, yoga was created entirely for that purpose. Whether through asanas or meditation—yoga is designed to work on the body’s immunity levels. In particular, surya namaskar or the traditional sun salutation, the practice of breath control through anulom-vilom, the cleansing breath work known as bhastrika; along with postures like trikonasana, camel pose, vajrasana and utkatasana work really well to increase the human body’s immunity. Ultimately, yoga is a healing science, and has been used traditionally and effectively for centuries to heal the human body and ensure overall fitness and wellness of the human body and mind.
For Paloma, yoga is a scientific method of healing the mind, body and soul all at once. Through her methodology and practice, she teaches postures with scientific precision and imparts an emotional understanding of the human mind and spirit. Specifically, she teaches medical yoga, which she believes is the need of the hour. This is done by identifying the source of physical pain and solving the problem pragmatically through yoga.
One can reach out to Paloma for a better understanding of their yoga-related doubts, or to learn the art of classical hatha yoga for overall wellness. She can be reached on email at palomagangopadhyay1@gmail.com or through her social media pages.
The writer is a lawyer who pens lifestyle articles for various publications and her blog www.nooranandchawla.com. She can be contacted on nooranand@gmail.com.