Connecting to oneself
ANJANA RAJAN
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Danseuse Geeta Chandran recounts how yoga helped her cope with a rigorous Bharatanatyam regimen.
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Photo: R. Shivaji Rao
The many uses of yoga: It is a part of Geeta Chandran’s dance classes now.
“I have been doing yoga for the last 10 years,” says eminent Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran. But her first exposure to the medium was not a result of wanting to tone her body, mind and senses to the eightfold path. Rather, it was a necessity, she relates, when she injured her knee — a part of the leg vital to any dance form and one which comes under sustained pressure while dancing Bharatanatyam.
For the most part, the older generation of gurus taught Bharatanatyam steps straightaway without going into any warm-up or preparatory exercises. The speed and duration of the rhythmic patterns she learnt while training as a young student in Delhi were also less in comparison to today, points out the dancer, teacher, mother and founder-director of Natya Vriksha, New Delhi. It was when she changed gurus that her dancing style became more rigorous. Starting yoga techniques at an advanced stage in her career — that too, spurred by an injury — may not be the best approach to fitness, concedes Geeta, but in those days, yoga was not the buzz word it is today. “Dheerendra Brahmachari was of course on TV,” she recalls with a laugh. Like others, she too watched his programmes and tried a bit of do-it-yourself yoga.
“So it was 1990-91 when I formally started. I learnt the asanas and pranayam under a teacher. Then I started using some asanas for dance. I found eight or nine that were useful for dance.” To pack a proper yoga schedule into a young child’s hour-long dance class is not possible, says Geeta, but she introduces her students to asanas that help the body gear itself up for Bharatanatyam.
There are asanas like eka pada that help develop balance, the butterfly pose that helps the turnout of the knees, and those that strengthen the toes to take the weight of the body. Then there are forward and backward stretches, enumerates Geeta, explaining that while she tailors the yoga she has learnt to the requirements of her students, she follows a slightly more elaborate schedule herself.
“I do pranayam because it is very beneficial for me. I don’t make them do it because of constraints of time.”
What she likes about yogic pranayam — observation of breath, inhaling and exhaling in coordinated patterns — is “just a sense of well being and being connected to yourself, this very basic thing because of which you live.” She finds it a “humbling reminder” of the essentials of life.
On the whole, feels Geeta, while yoga develops concentration due to its emphasis on coordinating the breath with movement, she thinks “dance is the best form of concentration”. Also, those who require it can use yoga to develop balance, stamina and body flexibility.
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