Hajira Didat is the founder of the Roving Yoga Studio, which hosts yoga classes at various venues across Gauteng.
Didat has been doing yoga for more than 16 years and has been teaching yoga professionally for more than eight.
Having been a yoga instructor at a number of Planet Fitness centres, she knows how to use yoga to help clients contort their bodies, control their minds and release all their frustrations. “People who practice it every day find that it allows them to delve deeper into their own minds, and people who practice it occasionally find it’s a great way to relieve stress,” she said.
The yoga guru also offers some insight into how yoga can benefit you both emotionally and physically. “Emotionally, if you are at a strained or difficult space in life, yoga will bring immediate relaxation.
“Every emotion you feel, takes up a space in your body – especially a negative emotion – and it tightens that space if you don’t deal with it. Yoga helps with that. It also gives you focus and clarity.”
Regarding the physical benefits of the activity, Didat said, “It adds flexibility to your body, but you don’t need to be flexible to start doing it. Most people don’t realise that it also has a cardio aspect and it gets your heart rate up.
“Yoga also activates the use of your core muscles with each pose and it allows you to focus on your breathing and, therefore, relax.”
It was with confidence in the benefits of yoga that Didat opened the Roving Yoga Studio in June and she wishes to get people involved and relaxed by taking part in the activity. “It’s a practice, it’s a discipline, it’s a way of life,” she concluded.
