The need for a discovery led Andonegi to yoga. Practice martial arts and surfing for a long time. But he was missing something. He bought a book that defines yoga as a philosophy, which underlines the idea of the full integration of life: “It’s not just what you do, but how.” Since he gave the first class, he has turned it into passion and the axis of life.

Yoga has its roots in India and is related to religion and rituals, but here the same thing of faith is not understood: “We have always had faith, another thing is how the Church has used it and politicized it. It has been limited and eliminated from within. We have lost internal faith because it has become politics, but we all have that spark. Without having a religion, yoga has to do with spirituality, that’s what I want.”

The way to interpret yoga is different in each society, as well as the way to practice it, as explained by Andonegi. Hatha is the most common type of yoga of all types, while 95% do. The same word means sun (ha) and moon (tha). Dynamism and rest. Body and breathing. “The key is to find the middle way,” he says, that the body be “healthy” as a whole. “On the one hand, flexibility and strength will be worked through different positions. On the other hand, we will become aware of respiration, which is essential to control energy.” Yoga, therefore, begins with the physical and reaches the invisible: meditation, relaxation, concentration and breathing.

Breathing is of great importance, as it unites body and head: “Those who created yoga stared around them, like animals. They realized that a lot of animals were rushed to their hearts. To others without haste. They realized that, when we have anxiety, breathing goes away quickly and stays at the top of the chest. This breathing is shallow and must be controlled. They tried to find the opposite: to breathe more and more. And they realized that the stress calmed down.”

The era of stress

“Stress is today’s biggest disease,” says Andonegi. “We have been here for 200,000 years and in the last 100 years life has changed a lot.” We do not use tools to manage these emotions, which affects the quality of life: you cannot sleep, live tired, drink coffee, re-lose sleep, relax, agitate, strain the diaphragm, focus breathing only on the chest, the knot in the belly, lose hunger, etc. “Has anyone ever wondered how to breathe?” He says that emotions have to do directly with breathing and that yoga is an opportunity to work that.

He defends everything that is done with the same perspective: “It doesn’t have to be with yoga, it can be a walk, breathe the sea, sing, dancing, drawing, eating well, chewing well... Everything is good, and anyone can do those things, like yoga.”

Both the 8-year-old and the 88-year-old are headed to him. “Depending on the body of each one of them, the difficulty each one places will be. There's no rung, there's no competition. Each is one, unique and unparalleled.” It has given us several keys to living healthy: accepting the body and not being at war, not only discovering happiness outside, but also within oneself, understanding the other with knowledge, thinking and loving oneself and knowing how to control energy.