yogic spring

This past weekend I was at the Shared Histories “The Wellbeing Experience” festival at Zoo Lake.

The Shared Histories festival is a cultural event that brings India to South Africa and as the name implies, is a reminder that the countries share history. It’s quite funny because when I was in India I found they were very unaware of this cultural connection- even of the fact that part of Mahatma Gandhi’s lifetime, and arguably inspiration was laid on these shores.  Maybe we should have our version of this festival in India. Anyway, I digress.

This was the first time the Wellbeing Experience was introduced to the larger festival. It essentially was a way of presenting the healing modalities from India, focussing primarily on Yoga and Ayurveda. These are two practices that were formalised into systems by the sage, Patanjali, along with his work on Sanskrit grammar. There was a nod to South Africa here in that there was also a stand for traditional healers run by the Traditional Healers Organisation.

I of course represented the Iyengar yoga community. I’m not sure whether the event could be termed an absolute success. The information about the event was confusing to some, implying that one had to book at CompuTicket for tickets. I am not very well read in the mainstream media so I cannot be sure of how much publicity the event attracted but the showing was poor.

The show was situated in a large tent with various  adjoining tents leading off from this main one. In the main tent were all the stands and the  side tents was were the various classes and talks were situated. Unfortunately I missed all the Ayurvedic talks that I was attracted to because I was assisting the Iyengar yoga classes. I was also very disappointed with the food. There were very few food stalls but it has to be said, the food I did try was very delicious.

On a positive note it was great to go around and chat to other yogis from different schools in Johannesburg. I even joined a Jivumukti class which was quite a workout. There was even music by Susheela Raman and Sam Mills accompanied by two Indian artists that I did not get the names of as well as a musical interlude by the traditional healers. Hopefully this part of the festival will be back next year, with more people and more Ayurvedic talks and stalls. It really is a great way for people to be exposed to the various styles of Yoga and hopefully to find the one that suits them.