Shilpa Shetty Kundra, Bollywood actress, entrepreneur, co-author of The Great Indian Diet, and celebrity yoga ambassador of India, got around 9,000 yoga enthusiasts stretching and twisting early Friday morning at the first XYoga Dubai.
The health and fitness event initiated by the Dubai Tourism & Commerce Marketing and XDubai, an adventure and action sports company, kicked off at Burj Park, Downtown Dubai, as Shetty Kundra taking the stage with well-known Indian yogi Suneel Singh.
“I think it’s wonderful that Dubai has embraced yoga and today it was proof as we saw a good turnout, all with their mind, body and soul present,” Shetty Kundra told tabloid! of the festival after the session. “They were willing to learn, to make a start. Yoga is practised in a big way even outside India as westerners are taking up yoga because they’ve understood its health benefits. And it is really simple, all you need to do is put your mind to it to see change in your life”.
“For us, it’s been in planning, in our minds for such a long time, that you kind of, like, forget to look up and see what it is that you are creating,” said Issam Abdul Rahim Kazim, CEO of Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM), of the successful opening of the two-day festival. “But when I look back at everything that happened today, I look at the number of people that actually showed up, I see smiling faces and the people so relaxed and chilled. And then to have the Crown Prince of Dubai, Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, appear and walk through the thing shows we’ve achieved all that we wanted to from our first yoga initiative”.
With India introducing the International Yoga Day last year and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who practises yoga himself, calling for a nationwide and international interest in the ancient discipline, Kazim feels that the political friendship between the two countries, visible in the recent visit to India by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, has proved beneficial to the festival.
“I think the visit came at the very right time for us. It’s great. We are working very closely with [Indian authorities] and they’ve been very supportive. In fact they were very happy that we also were looking at creating a Dubai-wide festival after they had their own huge event [in India]. For us the reason why we chose yoga is because it provides the much needed work-life balance in our lifestyle nowadays that other activities may not. More importantly, it’s something you can bring everyone — from the grandparents to the little ones — to. And for us it’s just the start of that cycle. It will be an annual event but the idea is to have little yoga events that can sporadically appear at different places in the city throughout the year. Just activations to continuously encourage people to keep practising this”.
As a celebrity, Shetty Kundra is “happy to play catalyst in creating awareness” of the exercise form that she says has given her so many health benefits.
“You know, you don’t need a membership [anywhere] just a yoga mat and yourself in a calm frame of mind. There’s nothing in the world you can’t achieve when you are aligned. We all are so scattered trying to achieve all that we want to in our lives. I feel yoga is such a great grounding factor. The pranayamas and the asanas make you realise that you can actually push yourself to a greater extent.
“I’ve done a lot of other forms of exercise but I’ve been doing yoga for 15 years now. I intersperse it with a bit of cardio sometimes. When I had to lose 32kg after my son’s birth, I did yoga and lot of cycling. Yoga is the only form of exercise that strengthens internally and externally. It also helps your internal organs, massaging them when you are doing stomach exercises. It calms your nerves. It is, basically, oneness of mind, body and soul”.
Don’t miss it
XYoga Dubai will continue till tomorrow, Saturday, February 20.
For more informaion go xyogadubai.com