Chinese yoga shouldn’t put India in a twist

Imitation, they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. That an entire Chinese village has taken to yoga should then be considered a victory of sorts for India, even if neither nation is unwilling to bend in general. But India also has reason to be wary of this enthusiastic Chinese espousal of a practice that the world believes to have originated from this subcontinent. Chinese yoga is no longer a contradiction in terms, and several centres are promoting it both in that country and in the west. Even those Chinese villagers apparently are practising yoga without the meditation aspect, a key difference between the Indian and Chinese “schools”. In fact, now that there is even a so-called Taoist yoga — “flow yoga” or “yin yoga” — that combines both styles, India’s monopoly of this ancient wellness science is already being challenged.

Moreover, given that China famously lays claim to pioneering, discovering or inventing practically everything, yoga is simply too big to be overlooked by it. The best way for India to counter this, however, is not merely by maintaining a calm yogic equanimity but by accepting and co-opting the Chinese method as a reverential offshoot of the main Indian techniques. It will require a very high degree of yogic skill for the challengers to then extricate themselves from that particular, assimilate-asana.