Karnataka: Mandya PE instructor teaches yoga to over 3,000 COVID patients

MYSURU: The shift from classroom teaching to online learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent lockdown kept many teachers busy inside the four walls. But the situation was different for physical education instructors as they couldn't take up online classes.

But this did not make 39-year-old Physical Education Director to sit idle in house, he went a step ahead and launched a mission of teaching free yoga and breathing exercises to COVID infected patients lodged at various covid care centres in the old-Mysuru region.

Meet Dr R Raghavendra, an NSS programme officer at Sheshadripuram Degree college in Mysuru who helped over 3,000 COVID infected patients in Mandya and Mysuru to learn yoga and help them recover and get back on track with their lives.

Raghavendra, a native of Baburayanakoppalu village in Srirangapatna of Mandya district decided to do his bit amidst the ravaging second wave of COVID-19 and came forward to teach yoga to COVID-19 patients in isolation at a COVID care centre in Srirangapatna.

His free yoga programme which focused on helping patients reach ideal saturation level and breathing exercise and pranayamas focusing on improving blood circulation and lung functioning became a huge hit forcing him to take up this mission across all taluks in Mandya.

"When I personally met and exchanged words with the covid patients I felt that they needed mental strength and emotional stability at these hardest times. Along with physical health needs of COVID patients I also helped them get mentally stronger through my programmes and laughing exercises," says Raghavendra, who is also the special NSS nodal officer for Mandya district.

Kapalbhati, Bhrastika and other forms of pranayama and yoga postures were through to strengthen respiratory and immune systems and help them improve control on breathing.

He did not stop here, anticipating the third wave he also toured across rural pockets in Mandya and Srirangapatna taluk helping people in the rural belt to gain hands-on yogic knowledge by visiting them at door-step and teaching them various breathing exercises.