Guru of postures

A practising kalaripayattu artist for the last 11 years, Kochi-based Charu Narayanan is the second lady to become a national yoga judge.

She dons the new mantle from being a participant and a winner of several championships.

“I will start judging initially at the state level championships organised by the Kerala Yoga Association and then will be invited to judge at the national level,” says Charu. She recently attended the judges competition organised by the Indian Yoga Federation in Kolkata.

A student of K P Bhaskara Menon at the Life Yoga Centre, Edappally, Charu has been learning and practising yoga for five years. She says that practising yoga has been an advantage as she is trained in a martial art form that requires her to be physically fit. The only woman practitioner of kalari in the state, Charu says it is a continuous process like yoga. “You have to keep at it. Any lackadaisical attitude would mean a physical injury for sure in kalari and yoga.” These days she has been concentrating on the treatment part of kalari education.

“Uzhichil is important in kalari education and our gurus teach it only after we have proved our dedication to the martial art form.” But she has combined this therapy with yoga to help people who are paralysed due to illness. “I have designed several exercises that can be done by people who are paralysed.

This, along with the kalari medicine, has helped some of them recover to a large extent,” she says.

The medicine is prepared by a kalari practitioner depending on the kind of injury.

“Each medicine is a special combination and I often take the advice of Vinildas Gurukkal at the Shiva Shakti Kalari Kshetram. He was the one who encouraged me to learn yoga along with kalari.” Apart from this, she is doing a two-year junior fellowship in performing arts under the Department of Culture, Government of India. Her work is on documenting and analysing the northern and southern system of kalaripayattu and their influence on different performing arts of Kerala.

A physical education trainer and part of Prof Chadradasan’s Lokadharmi theatre group, she choreographs the physical movements of artists on stage. “I study women characters and use kalari movements for them,” she explains.

But yoga and yoga therapy are something she is looking to further improvise because there are a lot of sick people who would benefit from it.

But it is only after seeing the patient and looking for an appropriate medicine in kalari that she decides on the treatment.

Charu Narayanan can be contacted at 9895647867.