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An eleven-member team from Canada is undergoing training in yoga in Wayanad.

KALPETTA: It was a long cherished dream of Natalie Brewer, a 25-year-old psychology student of New Brunswick University in Canada, to learn yoga from a yogacharya in the land of yoga. The dream got fulfilled recently when yoga expert P. Gopalakrishnan took her under his tutelage.

Natalie is part of an 11-member Canadian team, led by Kerry Lawson, a certified Hata Yoga instructor hailing from Nova Scotia, Canada. The team is undergoing a three-week yoga training session on the premises of a home-stay at Lakkidi in Wayanad.

Ms. Lawson has been conducting trips to India for six years and 60 Canadians have learned yoga under the tutelage of yogacharyas in India. “Yoga is an ancient philosophy that comprises many things. One part is asanas, or poses, which is what is emphasised on in the West. But it is important to understand that there is much, much more to yoga than physical asanas,” Ms. Lawson said.

Yoga was always part of her life since her mother too taught it. Ms. Lawson has been upgrading her yoga teaching certifications constantly since 1994. She currently teaches yoga and meditation in schools in Nova Scotia and Nunavut. “I am a member of Yoga Atlantic, an association of yoga teachers in the Maritimes province. The organisation has 236 members in the region,” she said, adding that she is saddened by the lack of enthusiasm of the new generation towards yoga in India.

Ms. Lawson learned yoga from the yogacharyas including A.P. Madhusudhana of the Swamy Janardhana lineage, Yogendra Misra of Rishikesh, Mr. Gopalakrishnan at Edakkad in Kozhikode and Siddharth in Varanasi.

The Canadian group will leave India on February 8.

Source: The Hindu; By E M Manoj