It’s hard to believe there is anyone else based in the UAE with more experience and knowledge in teaching yoga than Sumit Manav.
About to embark on his PhD later this year – one of the subjects he’s considering exploring is how affirmations can change the brain – the 37-year-old has amassed six years of education in sport science, yoga and human consciousness and 10,000 hours of teacher training.
That’s why classes at one of his four Lifestyle Yoga studios in Dubai are an entirely different experience than many of the city’s enthusiasts might be used to. First-timers go to the beginner class for a few weeks, to prepare. There is always a meditation session, because, as Manav puts it: “there is no yoga without meditation”.
“We also give them the work, what you have to do when you leave for home, what to do when you leave for work,” he says. “It’s a whole lifestyle, not just yoga, that can bring a transformation.”
Advanced students can experience Manav’s Yogina class, which combines stamina, mindfulness and a mind-boggling 99 postures in one very sweaty hour. As one of his students writes on his studio’s website: “Lifestyle yoga is different from those classes I have attended before. They are making sure you actually do yoga.”
Manav, who will expand the concept he brought from India to the UAE when he opens studios in the United Kingdom and Germany next year, was introduced to yoga when his mother sent him to a month-long camp at an ashram when he was 14.
With so much experience under his belt, Manav struggles to understand something that is increasingly common in the yoga industry: graduates from just one 200-hour training, setting up as teachers. “[In those] 200 hours, you’re only learning that one style – 200 hours are surely not enough to understand the body.”
Each yoga pose has a science behind it and each posture plays with a certain part of the body, explains Manav, who hopes teachers understand that properly teaching yoga requires continuous training and a career-long dedication.
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Read more:
Hot stuff: Natasha Rudatsenko on Bikram and her new Dubai studio
Andrea Marcum: Yoga is a party everyone is invited to
On fermented food in the UAE: Where to find it and why you should eat it
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NO OTHER LAND
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Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
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Washmen Profile
Date Started: May 2015
Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Laundry
Employees: 170
Funding: about $8m
Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures
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Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
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Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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