By
Akanksha Kukreti
Photo:Gargi Nim

NEW DELHI

Gaurav Dabral, a 27-year-old IT professional in Bangalore,
woke up one morning and sat in front of his television set. His yoga class was about to start. On TV. But he made a mistake and had to pay for it. He had a slip disc on the back.

Practising yoga is good for health but wrong practice of it end in serious problems. Any negligence can lead to lifelong ailments.
If you really want to save yourself from the trouble, read on.

The Thumb Rule

It is always safer to do exercises that suit your body and do them only
under somebody’s guidance. A Delhi based yoga instructor Priyanka
Verma says: “Yoga has the motive of uniting body and mind. It is always
safer to do it under somebody’s guidance”.

Dr. Zubia Veqar, a lecturer at Centre for Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, Jamia Millia Islamia, agrees that you need to be cautious while doing Yoga . “There are hardly any cases of people who come for physiotherapy after the wrong practice of yoga but definitely yoga is one such practice which should be done under proper guidance of an experienced instructor”, she says.

Priyanka talks of a Delhi-based yoga institute (name kept confidential) which conducts free yoga classes in the morning. She says that such yoga institutes provide free classes and many people join them. But they are very harmful because each body is different and different ailments require different treatments or different exercises. “This practice needs at least 3-4 months of regular practice under an experienced instructor and also a great discipline to learn. Then only you can do it on your own,” she adds.

Accepting the Mistake

“After committing the mistake of doing yoga in a wrong manner people still don’t accept it in public,” says Gaurav Dabral. Priyanka also agrees that very often people don’t admit their mistakes. “They feel they would become an object of ridicule if they do so. So there are hardly any such cases that come to limelight,” she points out. “Television is good for motivation but it should not be solely used as a guide,”that is Priyanka’s word of caution for fitness freaks.