Elderly Chinese yoga enthusiast holds free classes

A 72-year-old Yoga enthusiast in China is offering free yoga classes after he sucessfully fought hypertension while practicing the ancient Indian physical and spiritual practice.
Yue Mingchao started to learn yoga at 63 after he retired and took his teaching certificate last year. He used to be overweight with hypertension and a fatty liver before he began to practise yoga.
To get well, Yue decided take up a physical sport and developed an interest in yoga after trying jogging, going to gym and dancing.
Yoga has become very popular in China in recent years. Most Chinese yoga enthusiasts are young women, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

"At the very beginning, I felt embarrassed as most yoga learners were women," Yue recalled.
"So I stayed at the back of the class. Of course, it was difficult at first. Even some simple poses, such as sitting cross-legged and bending down, were too hard for him. It took three months before he was broken in. After two years, his fat belly had disappeared and his health had improved," the report said.

After nine years' hard practice, Yue became a yoga master and began to provide free classes three times a week in March 2015.
Now the class has some 60 students compared to 15 when it was set up.

Yue's students are aged from 50 to 82. Most of them want to tone up their bodies and improve their health, he said.
In recent years Chinese have taken to Yoga the physical, mental, and spiritual practice originating from India in a big way as it is believed to harmonise mental and physical energy.
The first yoga college has come up in Kunming city which was established in collaboration with India.