A national level yoga player, Tanmay Yadav belongs to Lucknow and has been practicing yoga for the last six years. He represented the Lucknow region in the regional level competitions. He has participated in various competitions, including regional and national level competitions, and has won gold, silver, and bronze medals. He encourages young athletes to choose their field based on their interests and to practice hard.

The Initiation

Tanmay Yadav is a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya Lucknow Cantt and is currently studying in twelfth grade. He started learning yoga under the guidance of his school teachers six years ago when he was in sixth grade. He got the inspiration from his sister to join yoga.

Gurus & Role Models

Initially he started practicing yoga under the guidance of his school teacher Sanjeev Trivedi in his school itself. He used to practice daily in which his teacher would first make him do warm-up and then do yoga. After the Covid pandemic, another teacher Kaushal Kishore used to train him. His teacher always encouraged him to participate in every open championship and prepare for them through hard practice. Tanmay’s role model is Milkha Singh and he follows him diligently. He admires that even after the injuries and pain, Milkha Singh never stopped and became successful. He recalls once he watched a Sandeep Maheshwari show in which a person said that he got 5 marks out of 100 initially but now he is an IAS officer. Whenever Tanmay gets distracted he draws motivation from that man’s example.

The Talent

He says that after joining yoga he became fit and it also improved his health. He explains that there are two types of yoga, one is for your body fitness and another one is of competition level. He practices yoga for competition level in which there are three groups A, B and C. A and C group includes six asanas like Paschimottanasana, Uttanpadasana and Sukhasana and the B group includes Bhumasana, Kukkutasana and Salabhasana. There are also some optional asanas that he performs in the competitions.

Achievements

Tanmay participated in the School Games Federation of India (SGFI) Tournament and has also played in regional and national level competitions. In the regionals he won 5 gold medals, 5 silver medals and 1 bronze medal. He also secured the first position in the nationals and earned two trophies. Recently he also played in an open tournament and won one bronze medal and one gold medal. Apart from sports, he also participated in the Green and Maths Olympiads. He also played inter-house matches and achieved the certificates in that.

A Bit More

Tanmay shares about the levels of competitions in his school in which firstly the students have to participate in the KV regionals and then move to the nationals. In the national level competitions, 25 state teams of various KVs participate and are then selected for the SGFI games. They also have to compete with the students who came from the Open category and then joined Khelo India. The thought that ‘When someone else can do it then why can't he do it’ inspires and motivates him a lot. He believes that everyone has the same 24 hours so if another person can do it he can also do it. Tanmay advises the youngsters that first they should ask themselves which field they want to choose according to their interest. In sports you have to give time and practice hard. Sports is something in which spoon feeding cannot be done. Coaches can teach you but you have to do it yourself, he says. On the other hand in yoga, discipline and daily practice is required. Tanmay shares that he is happy that he got the opportunity to visit various places like Bhubaneswar, Noida, Almapur, etc because of sports and learned new things as well as gained experience.