How to be Stronger than your Strongest Excuse

Give this Celebrity Trainer’s Mantra to achieve goals a try!

From training Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor Khan to Anurag Kashyap and Zoya Akhtar, Rupal has taught yoga to half of Bollywood. Reaching this height didn’t happen overnight, it took years and years of training, education and teaching different forms of yoga practises.

Aligning our skill and effort to reach certain goals we’ve set for our careers in this age that we’re living in is extremely competitive. Making it big in any industry is hard but not a completely impractical idea to chase. Rupal, the celebrity yoga trainer and founder of Rupal’s Yogasthenics, chose to beat the race by using a few mantras that helped her throughout her career.

She began her journey in yoga watching her father practice yoga. Over the years, her path led her to yoga therapy. She shared “I saw the magic of yoga when my third student, who was going through chemotherapy, benefitted immensely from it. It is proven that up to 60% of side effects of chemo can be cut down just through yoga. That’s when I got deeper into it”.

Yoga is practised by the whole world as an exercise routine, but it is originally built as a philosophy and a way of life. Rupal mentioned that a lot of people ask her questions like “How many hours of yoga do you do?” and she usually has a witty reply to that, “I do yoga 24/7 but if you’re talking about asanas, I do them for a couple of hours each day.”

A pivot in her journey began while at Funcfit Gym, Mumbai. Her strength in cardio endurance and lifting weights were good and most times outplayed the boys, crediting her yoga! She was training there when Anurag Kashyap approached her to cure his back spasm. There was no looking back when she cured him in one stretch.

Rupal then began training Soha Ali Khan when the actress became pregnant and here’s where Rupal’s pre-natal speciality came into action. Her only marketing was done through word of mouth which had a domino effect. She went on to train Zoya Akhtar, Alia Bhatt, Kareena, Saif, Ritesh Deshmukh, Jay Oza and many more.

Good health is underrated and hence we need to strive for a conducive balance of things. Rupal also runs an organisation that focuses on 5–6 students at a time for therapy led by experienced yoga instructors. She is an avid traveller who enjoys picking up practices from around the globe and seeing what techniques can bridge the gap that is present in therapy currently. She invests time in reading and improving as yoga is a vast subject and the learning will never cease.

Rupal’s Mantra being this: “Karam kar, fal ki fikar mat karo” which translates into focusing on the duty diligently without worrying about the fruits of the labour.

“I was looking for humanity when I came to BHX. The world is so negative, so cutthroat. I found humanity here!”, said Rupal.

Rupal teaches pure yoga most times. When she teaches Yogasthenics it is specifically mentioned that it’s a combination of two practises Techniques of CrossFit + Anatomy of yoga.

“I was thinking about quitting and it made me realise I have barely scratched the surface. The amount of work I’ve done at BHX is more than what I’ve worked throughout the year,” mentioned Rupal.

When we asked her what Yoga Asana she would be and why she replied:

“Uthitaekpadpashchimmotasana

Standing, one leg forward, and bending forward

I’m going to be submissive to whatever will come my way, any sort of experience, the one foot that points out, will push away any negativity.”