Practicing online yoga is more convenient than travelling to a studio: Sarvesh Shashi, SARVA.

This originally appeared on ETHealthworld

The Yoga market is expected to reach $66.22 Billion globally by 2027. Brands like Peloton and Tempo are heavily relying on Yoga being one of the best sellers in their fitness menu of services.

I remember reading an article in a small publication about how they saw?Yoga?and its growth in the upcoming years. It spoke about a virtual instructor that would appear on a projector and would speak to me like a real instructor in a studio. That was slated to happen in 2030. And here we are, 2021, 9 years earlier, it seems to have come true! Yoga is a pre-vedic tradition from ancient India that started maybe 5000 years ago. Students would go to an ashram to learn from their Gurus and then use that knowledge to teach other students.

Roughly 4900 years later in the 1920’s Yoga emerged as a technique for spirituality and fitness in India. This reached the West in the 1960’s and the rest is history. In just 4900 years, Yoga reached every corner of the world. Now, there are several schools of Yoga and innovative methods of practising Yoga. You can choose a style based on your interest, intensity and choice of teacher. These have become the revolutionary choices one makes on a daily basis and thus, Yoga is more accessible today than ever.

But have we reached the peak of Yoga’s growth and world wide acceptance ? I hardly think so. Could there be another time tested practice that could help strengthen the body’s defense mechanism and in turn allow it to be better prepared to fight the newer challenges? Just imagine this, a practice the roots for which remain untouched, unchanged and unique, spanned across 5000 years is now available to billions of people across the globe through the?power of technology.

The?human body?is a biological marvel. It has continually evolved over millions of years and over a host of different challenges, to its prime configuration today. The practice of Yoga evolved with this as well.

Just to put a few things in perspective. WHO states that 264 million people suffer from depression worldwide and obesity has tripled in merely 50 years. By 2045, the total number of Diabetics in the world will rise to 700 million which is double of what this number is today. If we know anything about predicted timelines, they tend to prophesize themselves sooner rather than later. Research shows that all of this is curable with Yoga, not to mention?insomnia, PCOS, hormonal imbalance and a host of other challenges.

And it's not just the practitioners of Yoga, even the non practitioners of Yoga are now turning towards it. The Yoga market is expected to reach $66.22 Billion globally by 2027. Brands like Peloton and Tempo are heavily relying on Yoga being one of the best sellers in their fitness menu of services.

300 Million people across the world practise Yoga today. That's only 4% of the world population. With the power of technology it wouldn't be a surprise if this number doubles, even triples to 900 million in the next 2 years itself. Since the pandemic and with the efforts of the Ministry of Ayush along with the support of the Prime minister’s office, several Yoga drives have been launched across the country. This year, its entirely digital, which means there is no limitation to “the size of the ground” or the “arrangements to be made at the venue”. Digitization and democratization of Yoga are a long cherished dream of the leaders of our country.

As the Yoga?industry?grows within the country, it is equally rapidly growing outside the country. Since the pandemic hit, 36% of international students have chosen to practise more often and 46% students want to continue practicing online since it is more convenient than travelling to a physical studio.

To answer the question, has Yoga reached its peak in the pandemic ? Elementary, my dear readers. This is just the beginning.

Sarvesh Shashi is the Founder of SARVA.

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