YouTube turns virtual teacher for 10-year-old rhythmic gymnast in Assam
November 19, 2017
Upasha Niku Talukdar is a worthy Ekalavya to a digital Dronacharya.
The 10-year-old from Guwahati in Assam is arguably India’s youngest and most decorated rhythmic gymnast. She recently won two gold medals and a silver at a national school event.
But unlike the famed Mahabharata archer, Upasha wasn’t turned down by a guru. She just couldn’t find one. No one in the Northeast would coach her in rhythmic gymnastics so she turned to YouTube.
Soon, Upasha, who took to the sport that combines dance, ballet and gymnastics when she was 8, had Olympians “coaching” her.
She watched videos of Ukrainians Anna Bessonova, Ekaterina Serebrianskaya and Tamara Yerofieieva and Russians Irina Tchachina, Yevgeniya Kanayeva and Alina Kabaeva.
The six, who have 212 medals between them, were among several of Upasha’s virtual teachers.
“She has always been flexible, twisting and turning and dancing to music. They day I saw her scratching her ear with her toes because her hands were occupied with homework, I decided she was cut out for gymnastics,” father Nikunja Talukdar, who runs a small pharmacy in the city, told Hindustan Times on Saturday.
In 2015, he took Upasha to gymnastics coach Ghanajyoti Das at Guwahati’s National Institute of Sports. After a test, Das suggested rhythmic gymnastics but expressed his inability to coach, saying he was an artistic gymnastics trainer and would be of little help to Upasha.
“I knew nothing about gymnastics except that the Russians are very good in it. The two of us then Googled and found many videos on rhythmic gymnastics on YouTube,” Nikunja said.
She watched videos of Ukrainians Anna Bessonova, Ekaterina Serebrianskaya and Tamara Yerofieieva and Russians Irina Tchachina, Yevgeniya Kanayeva and Alina Kabaeva.
The six, who have 212 medals between them, were among several of Upasha’s virtual teachers.
“She has always been flexible, twisting and turning and dancing to music. They day I saw her scratching her ear with her toes because her hands were occupied with homework, I decided she was cut out for gymnastics,” father Nikunja Talukdar, who runs a small pharmacy in the city, told Hindustan Times on Saturday.
In 2015, he took Upasha to gymnastics coach Ghanajyoti Das at Guwahati’s National Institute of Sports. After a test, Das suggested rhythmic gymnastics but expressed his inability to coach, saying he was an artistic gymnastics trainer and would be of little help to Upasha.
“I knew nothing about gymnastics except that the Russians are very good in it. The two of us then Googled and found many videos on rhythmic gymnastics on YouTube,” Nikunja said.
