Dubai yoga group honors 35 years of free teaching abroad

Friends of Yoga turned its Dubai International Day of Yoga celebration into a public tribute for K.B. Madhavan, the teacher behind 35 years of free yoga training across the UAE. Paul Prabhakar inaugurated the gathering, which mixed recognition, instruction and performance for a wider Malayalam-speaking community.

Friends of Yoga honored Madhavan with a memento and a shawl, a gesture that made the event feel less like a formal observance and more like a thank-you from the people his work has reached. The group says it was founded in Dubai in 1990 with the blessings of the late Yoga Guru Shri K.B. Rao, and that Madhavan, popularly known as Guruji, continues to lead it.

That free-access model is the backbone of the story. Friends of Yoga says it has expanded to multiple branches across countries while continuing daily free yoga classes, which gives newcomers a clearer entry point than the usual studio pipeline of fees, drop-ins and advance experience. In Dubai, where International Day of Yoga celebrations have drawn thousands across the city this June, the group's event stood out for making belonging part of the program itself.

The cultural side mattered just as much as the teaching. Varalakshmi, Sagar, Vipul, Ameera and Vinila led a yoga-and-dance performance that gave the evening a festive, communal rhythm instead of a pure demo format. A broad circle of speakers, including Sanjeeth, Gaurav, Yasir Hamid, B. Pavithran, K.P. Vijayan, B.A. Nassar, Prajeesh Balussery, Ansar, Shashikumar, Moorthy and Naidu, also addressed the audience, widening the circle beyond a single lineage or teaching style.

That mix of speeches, movement and recognition made the Dubai gathering feel like a gateway. Newcomers could see a living yoga culture built on free daily classes, hear from the people around it, and watch how the practice sits naturally alongside music, dance and community honor. For a diaspora group rooted in Dubai since 1990, the message was plain: yoga here is not only something to practice, but something to share.

By the end of the celebration, the shawl and the memento had become more than ceremonial touches. They framed Madhavan's 35 years of free teaching as the center of the room, and they tied International Day of Yoga back to the same idea Friends of Yoga has carried since the start, that access is the point, and the community grows when the door stays open.