Honored to be honored
Thank you Françoise Brailovsky and ITAM
In the past, I have written about thesis supervision at ITAM.
I have written about Yoga at ITAM as well.
This muse is about Yoga at ITAM but totally different!
ITAM Health Week this week was special for me
Translated relevant bits from above:
ITAM Health Week 2025 - Conference: The Past, Present, and Future of Yoga at ITAM. In Honor of Tapen Sinha
April 8, 2025
4:00 PM to 5:00 PM
Health Conference: The Past, Present, and Future of Yoga at ITAM. In Honor of Tapen Sinha, Pioneer of Yoga at ITAM
You will learn how the discipline of Yoga began at our institution and how knowing what happened in the past is a guide to show us what will happen in the future.
Tapen Sinha, former Professor and Director of the Master's Program in Risk Management at ITAM, and a pioneer of Yoga at ITAM since 1998, will answer a series of questions regarding the current increase in people's longevity and will demonstrate, with statistical data, that yoga helps us all achieve physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This well-being ensures a good quality of life and a healthy future.
ITAM - Academic Excellence. Human Excellence.
Presented by: Dr. Horacio Vives Segl
With: Tapen Sinha, Françoise Brailovsky, Beatriz Rumbos, Martha Sanchez and Margarita Tarragona
I have been honored for my teaching and research in the fields I worked on professionally. Yoga was never a profession for me. I never charged anybody for taking yoga classes from me. It was nice to be recognized for my yoga classes.
The Past
In 2023, I visited ITAM and went to see a “Competitive Yoga” presentation. This is a collage from my visit there.
I gave a longish talk on yoga with some demonstrations to go with it.
This time, I did it a little differently. Given that my topic was about the past and the *future* of yoga, I added students who asked me questions. My entire presentation was in a question and answer format.
Here is my 22 minute presentation (in Spanish)
This is a collage from my 2023 visit but it is the talk I gave back then in person.
I am alway leery of doing a live presentation on the internet. Things go wrong on a number of different fronts. Often, the sound comes garbled. Frozen video is another common nuisance. When you are trying to execute that from a distance of 12,000 kilometers and 18 time zones away, it is even more dicey.
The Future in My Talk
I wanted to connect yoga from the past to yoga of the future. So, I formed my talk in the format of questions and answers: Current students of ITAM asking questions and me answering them - all in video format not just audio.
I did a plug for Rabinadranath Tagore this time! [At around 6:20]
Tapen Sinha: El pasado, presente y futuro del Yoga
It was in response to a question by a student as to what will happen to yoga in ITAM in the future. My response was that the future does not fall out of the sky (or of a coconut tree as the Tamil proverb goes). It arises out of the past. This is exactly what Tagore was saying over 120 years ago.
The driver (R Tagore)
I asked my destiny, ‘Who is propelling me forward, the eternally cruel one?’
He said, ‘Turn around.’ I stopped and turned to see.
It was my past self pushing me forward relentlessly.
চালক
অদৃষ্টেরে শুধালেম, ‘চিরদিন পিছে
অমোঘ নিষ্ঠুর বলে কে মোরে ঠেলিছে।’
সে কহিল, ‘ফিরে দেখো।’ দেখিলাম থামি,
সম্মুখে ঠেলিছে মোরে পশ্চাতের আমি।
We can express Tagore’s poem in terms of a Time Series Formula:
Y(t) = A0 + A1.Y(t-1) + A2.(Yt-2) + A3.Y(t-3) + ….
Executive summary: The Future is Driven by the Past and the Present
I had talked about Tagore in another muse. I recited Tagore to a bunch of Mayan Yucatecos - as unlikely as it may sound.
Executive warning note: More on Tagore coming in my future muses. But Tagore would be the main theme rather than a guest appearance in a movie.
Seminarial thoughts
Looking back, when I started giving yoga classes at ITAM in 1998, it was no different from what I did earlier. For example, in 1989, I gave the first ever yoga classes at Bond University, Australia. The university started that year. I did not even dream of creating a business out of yoga. But, things have changed. Yoga has become mainstream in the West.
https://bond.edu.au/news/bond-business-accelerator-driving-gold-coast-yoga-start-up-toward-success
In my previous muse about Bond, I wrote about how I instituted a scholarship.
Similarly, at Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin, I started a yoga class. Ripon has a long history - with the first graduating class in 1867 - all women. The men had to leave to fight in the Civil War. Nobody gave a yoga class until I started it in 1983. But now it has taken a completely different turn! https://ripon.edu/event/yoga-sound-bath/
Final thought: ¡Gracias Yogi Fran desde mi atma!
If it hadn't been for his plethora of other skills and accomplishments, Tapen would've made a name just as a yoga teacher ... who charges nothing to share his knowledge and passion.