Now more people opting yoga as profession: Ayush Ministry

Yoga institutes across the country have witnessed a jump in the number of applications from people, including engineers and computer professionals, wanting to be yoga teachers, Ayush Ministry today said and attributed the trend to the success of International Yoga Day.
Ayush secretary Ajit Sharan said a survey by his ministry after the first IYD on June 21, 2015, suggested that all yoga institutions have received "double or triple" the number of applications from people wishing to be yoga trainers.
Also, to professionalise the entire ecosystem of yoga, Ayush Ministry has got special yoga apparels designed by two leading institutes-- National Institute of Design (NID) and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT)-- and sent it to various companies including Fabindia, Reebok and Khadi board for them to adopt it free of cost.

"We did a survey of yoga institutions in the country as to what was the outcome of yoga day celebrations. In all yoga teacher-training institutions, applications for enrolling as yoga instructors had almost doubled if not tripled," he said.
He pointed out that one of the major fallouts was that young people have started seeing yoga as a serious career option.
"I was visiting one of the institutions. I interacted with people who had enlisted recently in the yoga programme. Most of them were engineers, MCAs and highly qualified otherwise. They had career options but they still switched to yoga because they had passion for it.

"The number of people practising yoga has also increased substantially. The enthusiasm and interest generated by it among the masses is unprecedented. These are the valuable outcomes of the IYD," he said during National Health Editors' Conference on Yoga for Holistic Health-Recent researches.

He, however, could not provide the numbers of such professionals who opted to become yoga teachers.
Sharan said his ministry was not looking at yoga as a business but its main objective was promotion and the highlighting the serious aspect of the exercise.
"In terms of professionalising the whole ecosystem of yoga, we have got special yoga apparel designed from two leading institutes, NID and NIFT. We have got 10 different designs prepared. We sent it to Khadi board, Fabindia, Reebok. They are free to adopt this.

"Yoga apparel is one. Yoga merchandising is another. We are not looking at money (for) ourselves. But yes, popularising and using the power of commerce to popularise yoga, we are open to it. We are trying various modalities to take yoga forward," he said.