The Saudi Yoga Committee, in cooperation with the Saudi Universities Sports Federation, organized a virtual introductory lecture for all university representatives across KSA on Yoga under the title (Yoga for University Students of Both Genders), at the headquarters of the Saudi Universities Sports Federation- SUSF in Ministry of Education, Riyadh on Monday evening.
This meeting came within the framework of an integrated system of programs and initiatives of the Saudi Committee for Yoga, in order to spread awareness and motivate its practice as a lifestyle for all segments of society, coinciding with the arrival of the first yoga delegation to the Kingdom from the Asian Yogasana Sports Federation, in India for the qualification course for the first Saudi batch of Yoga Referees hosted by the Ministry of Sports in cooperation with the Saudi Yoga Committee to train Saudi yoga referees in the Kingdom.
The lecture aims to introduce both Traditional Yoga and Yogasana Sports to Saudi universities and give a variety of options to the students on university campuses to practice yoga whether they want to practice yoga for their mental and physical health or take it to an advanced level and join professional Yogasana Sports training to be part of competitions locally and internationally.
It also shed the light on the system of professional Yogasana competitions to form teams for Yogasana competitions in universities within the university sports and the university league, to motivate youth to join sustainable and professional yoga training. The lecture included several main axes, the most important of which are the definition and basics of traditional yoga, the benefits of yoga for health and physical well-being in the youth years, yogasana sports for tournaments and competitions, requirements for professional yoga training, and the technical regulation of the Saudi Yoga Committee for Championships and Competitions in Saudi Universities.
Nouf Almarwaai, President of the Saudi Yoga Committee, explained that the committee seeks to achieve its vision of spreading yoga on a large scale within Saudi society, and therefore it took the initiative to cooperate with the Saudi Universities Sports Federation in order to build a generation of yoga lovers, especially young people, to enjoy Physical and mental health. She added that the committee seeks to increase the number of practitioners and build yoga teams that participate in local and regional yoga championships, as the Kingdom excels at the Arab level in yoga, and citizens and residents practice it and at the same time teach yoga as a profession.
Al-Marwaai pointed out the benefits of practising yoga for young men and women, scientific studies have shown that its practice improves the academic achievement of students, and it has a significant role in reducing stress and anxiety and improving motor development, as yoga enables young people to use different muscles, and their various asanas and positions. Such as stretching, forward bending, backward bending of the spine, twisting and inverted asanas, and balance asanas give young people physical flexibility to be healthy.
Benefits of practicing yoga
Yoga contributes to emotional development, and pranayama breathing exercises help to reach this goal with ease. Mindfulness training and concentration exercises help improve emotional state, control emotions, and disciplined response to nervous stimuli. In addition to its ability to contribute to the social development of youth from both genders, it improves motivation and has an important role in reducing symptoms of depression and sleep disorders and improving mood, as proven by studies, and this is achieved thanks to slow practice and muscle control "asanas" with breathing control "pranayamas", which causes chemical changes in the system Nervousness improves mood and reduces anger outbursts in the different stage of youth.
It is reported that yoga has been practised for five thousand years to improve physical and mental health. The Kingdom is the first Arab country to establish a federation of "yoga" that works to spread awareness of Yoga and its various aspects. The practice extends to ancient origins in Indian philosophy and relies on the physical postures called "asana", breathing exercises "pranayama" followed by relaxation exercises "yoga nidra", and meditation "dhayan".
[Disclaimer: This is a guest post by Saud Hafiz. Views expressed are author's own.]
