South Carolina School to Include Ancient Indian Exercise Yoga in Year End Celebrations

Hindus have commended Memminger Elementary School (MES) in Charleston (South Carolina, USA) for reportedly making yoga a major part of the end-of-the-school-year celebrations party on May 26.

This mass yoga event was reportedly held in the gymnasium of MES, a University Partnership School also known as Memminger School of Global Studies.

Calling it a step in the positive direction, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, applauded MES for coming forward and providing an awareness opportunity to students regarding multi-benefit yoga.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged South Carolina Governor Nikki Randhawa Haley and State Superintendent of Education Molly M. Spearman to work towards formally introducing yoga as a part of curriculum in all the public schools of the state, thus incorporating highly beneficial yoga in the lives of South Carolina’s students.

Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Rajan Zed pointed out.

Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to a recently released “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Rajan Zed added.

MES (in Charleston County School District), which claims to help “all students develop world class academic and life skills”, enrolls students from Early Childhood to fifth grades. Dr. Abigail Woods and Natasha Jones are Principal and Vice Principal respectively.