Putting the chi in yoga: Hatha and Vinyasa poses plus massage, traditional Chinese medicine, and acrobatics in classes that emphasise practical and spiritual sides
- As China’s yoga market expands, local and international teachers are setting up schools
- They offer the classic poses and mix it up with science, gymnastics and TCM
China is stretching its yoga muscles, and catching up with the rest of the world in its demand for lessons in the stress-relieving practice that marries breath work and poses.
By 2020, the yoga market in China is expected to stretch to nearly 47 billion yuan (US$6.7 billion), not far behind the US yoga market which is expected to be worth US$11.6 billion, according to projections from Statista. Five-star studios are opening up across mainland China, led by a growing number of devoted, respected, yogis who have trained locally and internationally.
Nino Mendes is 1.88 metres tall, athletic, spiritual, and fluent in Chinese (as well as English, Italian, French, Spanish). Mendes, 40, is from France and has travelled the world learning and teaching yoga. He moved to Shanghai in 2012, originally to learn martial arts, but his “Nino Yoga” took off, and he has called Shanghai and China home ever since.
“I think people like me here because there is honesty in my teaching. I’m not here to be nice to people. I teach them to push themselves, to challenge their beliefs and do the poses they think they can’t do. This expands how they see the world,” says Mendes, who uses his communication skills to help his students change the way they think, to push through fears and limiting beliefs and to change their thoughts and actions.
