Yoga has been introduced in the shooting discipline for the first time to help the marksmen improve conditioning and maximise their performance at the range.
Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Morarji Desai Institute of Yoga, Delhi have joined hands to help the junior shooters in their quest to bring medals to the country in the forthcoming championship.
A total of 24 (12+12) junior male and female shooters and five coaches are practising yoga in the national camp at the Karni Singh Shooting Range for the Asian Championship, to be held in Nanchang from December 12 to 18.
The Morarji Desai institute has provided two (one male and one female) yoga experts to the national campers after SAI approached them for their expertise.
Asian Games gold medallist and Arjuna awardee, Jaspal Rana is the chief coach of the junior team assisted by female coach Deepali Deshpande, who was among the country's best women shooters before she went off the radar following a disastrous outing in the 2004 Athens Olympics.
"It's the decision taken by the SAI Director General (Gopal Krishna) to introduce yoga in shooting with the support of Morarji Desai institute. They are assisting us with their expertise," said Roque Dias, Regional Director, SAI (LTDP - Youth OG'20).
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Rana said the introduction of yoga programme will make the shooters disciplined and competition ready while also helping in expressing themselves through movement, breath and body to rejuvenate and transform on every level.
"It's been long overdue. Yoga is the need of the hour as in a sport like shooting, you need to be mentally tough and require high concentration skill. The shooters will definitely benefit from it," Rana told PTI. More