College blends yoga with Chinese characteristics

Yoga with China characteristics? Teachers and students from the first yoga college jointly established by India and China are trying to turn it into reality.

To obtain a degree of yoga, students from the India-China Yoga College (ICYC), located in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, have to attend nine courses, including the basic principles of yoga (which was taught by Indian teachers bu using Indian textbooks); Chinese and Indian culture and the physical therapy of yoga, Lang Gongxun, the associate dean of ICYC, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to China in 2015, the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and Yunnan Minzu University co-founded ICYC, said Lang.

Applicants are required to pass China’s postgraduate entrance examination and tests from the college.

Forty students enrolled in the undergraduate program in 2017, and 12 postgraduate yoga majors enrolled in September 2018.

“The 12 yoga masters have three academic years, including two years in China and one year in India,” Lang said.

Zhang Mengping, one of the college students, told the China News Service on Sunday that she found peace from yoga, and that she said it was good to know about Chinese and Indian culture.

Instead of completely copying the teaching system of Indian yoga, ICYC is trying to create a yoga class with China characteristics through the textbooks, teaching and research methods by combining the Chinese markets, industries and other elements.