Nacho, gaao, kar lo witness, Folk Fitness

India is a country that has thousands of folk dances, some are popular like bhangra, garba, dandiya, lavni, etc and some are not so popular. Music of some folk dances have become a rage and even today we sing and dance to them. Daler Mendhi, Falguni Pathak, Ila Arun ruled our festivals year after year. But if you think that folk dances are the only way to celebrate a festival or be a part of a puja then think again.

How about using bhangra to build your calf muscles, garba to make the back stronger, bihu to make the core tough and koli dance for building the biceps and triceps Yes Pune based group of young fitness enthusiast have come up with First “Make in India” Fitness Concept. Move out zumba lovers now it is time to dance and get fit in our own traditional Indian way. This new folk fitness has moves that are known to us.

I met Aarti D. Pandey, co-founder of Folk Fitness who is based out of Pune but now travels all over India and other parts of the world popularising Indian traditional dances through Folk Fitness.

She says, “I have never seen a fat fisherman in India, which is because of the functional activities they do and when they celebrate with their folk dances they use same in their dances too, that is when we decided to use the essence of Indian dances into fitness.’

Aarti who along with her brother Ashwin Pandey owns fiber fitness center in Pune, has learnt Indian folk dances for many years under the expert guidance of Late Indumati Lele and represented Maharashtra and India at many national and international dance competitions. Winning awards made the brother sister duo think about taking Indian cultural dance to another level.

Owning a fitness center and training many fitness enthusiasts made Ashwin realise one thing, he said “If you look at fitness today you will see mostly foreign imports such as aerobics, zumba, pilates, aqua aerobics, except yoga, which too has turned western due to hot yoga, power yoga, nude yoga etc. Why not introduce our own dances as fitness ”

Ashwin and Aarti conducted a case study with their gym members for four months. Monitoring everything about their workout, they took help from USA-based fitness consultancy firm Velocity fitness, fitness experts David Welk and Brad Martin who came to India for the research.

Being a dancer and fitness lover myself, I had many questions running in my mind while I spoke to Ashwin and Aarti who also happens to my student and has learnt ballroom and Latin dances from me for a while.

So I opened asked her a few questions:

Let me start with the very basic question , What is Folk Fitness(TM) and what is the thought behind it India is home to people with diverse cultures and traditions. Celebration is an integral part of the lives of the people here, be it weddings, festivals, or arrival of seasons. Dance being a powerful expression of joy and happiness, we dance our way through every occasion. So there are more than 130 registered known folk dances in India. We got to research through all these folk dance forms and experience their health benefits.

Apart from the gala, our folk dances have also played a crucial role in evolving a person physically, mentally, spiritually and socially. So we believe that the folk dances are a part of the scientific process towards human liberation and well being.

There was a never a fat farmer in Indian villages or no woman in Rajasthan had to use a special diet or treadmill to maintain amazing level of fitness levels and strength. The Intention of Folk Fitness(TM) is to get the ingrained fitness culture back where health and fitness were a part of lives.

Folk Fitness (TM) is a choreographed group workout routine blended with a tinge of ethnicity. It is an ideal fusion of cultural gems from all parts of the country with the science of Fitness Management to attain holistic fitness of body, mind and soul. We take pride in designing the only ‘Make in India’ fitness product that would be India’s biggest gift to global fitness fraternity.

Folk Fitness(TM) benefits are scientifically tested and patented and the routines are copyrighted. It is a unique cardiovascular, full-body strength, endurance and agility exercise programme designed for people of all ages, backgrounds, and fitness levels.

How would Folk Fitness(TM) help fitness enthusiasts, Instructors and Gymnasium Owners Folk Fitness (TM) routines have been well designed to impact all age groups. The benefits, dance forms and intensities have been scientifically designed to suit the physical and mental need of various age groups.

We realised that a lot of gym members or fitness enthusiasts are not able to enjoy the group activities available because they are not able to relate with the dance steps and music as most of the group exercise workout routines are imports from out of the country.

What is scientific validity of Folk Fitness We did a case study with 24 random members of all age groups taken through Folk Fitness routine for eight weeks. The objective of the case study was to get the routines vetted by best fitness experts, to ensure it is injury proof and the right science of fitness management is incorporated and most of all, all this to be verified by real members.

The results received were simply amazing. People related to songs and dance steps of their region and wanted to learn more and of other states. We clocked average weight loss of more than 4 kg, 1.2 per cent fat loss with 85 per cent attendance through out.

How are various folk dances associated with Upper Body, Lower Body or Cardio Routine Every folk dance steps and intensity is primarily dependent on the geographical condition of the region. This ensures development and strengthening of some body parts more which supports functionality as per that region. For example: chest: Rajasthani, Bengali, Rathvaa, back: koli, Rajashthani, garba , bihu, biceps/ triceps: koli, garba, bihu, rathvaa, shoulders: bhangra , koli, chapeli, core: bihu, garba, Bengali, quadriceps/ hamstring: bhangra, kargarttam, kalbeliya, glutes: dam, khai, bhadhaai, calves: kargarttam, kalbeliya, bhangra , garba

This age being of technology, any plans incorporate that into Folk Fitness (TM) offering Folk Fitness (TM) is not only going to be the most culturally and scientifically rich fitness programme, but most technologically advanced as well.

What is the immediate and long term future plan Our vision with Folk Fitness is to make it the most popular result oriented workout routine in the world. The first phase of the endeavour is to launch it in five major cities Pune, Mumbai, Delhi/NCR, Bangalore and Hyderabad by this year end. We just had a very successful launch of Folk Fitness at Pune in July-August 2016. We trained and certified 20 FFYT (Folk Fitness Yuva Trainers ) in our very first certification batch at Pune, with instructors from seven different cities( Delhi, Chandigarh, Nasik, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune) coming to Pune for the two-day training .

Our next stoppage is Mumbai where Folk Fitness is being shared across all major fitness centres and studios .

Ashwin who is the Principal curator of Folk Fitness and has more than 15 years of Indian folk dance experience of teaching and performing arts under his belt. He is among the top folk dance experts in India, who has choreographed more than 800 folk dance routines performed across the globe. He choreographed and led Indian Team in World Championship of ‘Eskrima Kali Arnis (Dance based martial arts form ) and won seven medals for our country in all categories. He says, “Soon we will have dandiya sticks weighing 1/2/3 kg, legium with small weights, fisherman rows sticks with weights too. So when we dance we can build muscles too depending on each body type and endurance.

So go and try it now. Let me say it the way folk dance fitness member war cry “Nacho, gaao, kar lo witness, Folk Fitness Folk Fitness” .

Sandip Soparrkar is a choreographer