600 students from upper primary (Class-VI to VIII) and secondary (Class IX-X) section are supposed to take part in the NCERT conducted National Yoga Olympiad, to be held on 20th June 2016. The competition will be assessed on the asanas. According to sources, each state will send 16 students, eight each from the upper primary and secondary sections and their selection is done by the state via the competitions already held in the month of April and May. But half of the participants will be girls. The final will be held on June 18th and 19th and the top teams will be felicitated by the HRD minister herself, SmritiIrani. This has been done keeping in mind that 21st June is the International Yoga Day.
However, the proposal has faced a few critical and skeptical objections. The opposition to this is mainly driven by the fact that Yoga is not something that can be subject to competition. According to ShekharSingh , a former ST. Stephen’s professor and Yoga instructor, every individual performs Yoga to the best of his/her physical ability. There is no defined best posture for any asana and thereby each person has the freedom to perform a posture with a uniqueness. Moreover, ‘external incentives’ for a healthy practice seems to defeat the very purpose of including Yogic practices in the curriculum in the first place.
But the proposal also saw support from a lot many distinguished person. For Instance, Ishwar V. Basavaraddi, Director of Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga in Delhi, also associated with the Yoga Olympiad defended the proposal by saying that it wasn’t just any individual competition but students will take part in this as teams. He pointed out that there is no harm in such a competition because already such competitions have been held in university and college level for years. Keeping up with the view, NCERT Director HrushikeshSenapati said that committee of experts have given a green signal for the event and moreover, the motive behind such an initiative is to increase awareness about Yoga.
Source: http://goo.gl/ImQ73p
