Move like an animal

Animal Flow, the new ‘it’ exercise regime is all about getting in touch with the primal being within you.
Rohit Prathap
Rohit Prathap

Animal Flow, the new ‘it’ exercise regime is all about getting in touch with the primal being within you. On all fours, one has to crawl like a lizard, walk like an ape, crouch like a tiger, stretch your body like a crab — traversing and transforming from one animal to another within seconds. It is all about the flow — flowing like the animals and mimicking their movements.

The ground-based movement system is all about channelling your inner animal. This modern exercise regime is getting very famous in the West and now it has reached Kerala, thanks to fitness trainer Rohit Prathap. The self-taught trainer has been introducing the animalistic movement patterns to people in Thiruvananthapuram for quite some time. Rohit, 31, calls the entire affair an art performance.

One cannot disagree, as Rohit traverses the gym floor on all fours, dissolving himself into animalistic movements. You can only see a great art being performed, one that’s athletic and at the same time ticks all your aesthetic sensibilities. Rohit chanced upon a video on animal flow during the pandemic outbreak. 
He instantly took to it and started learning the movements and practicing it in his backyard.

“For me, animal flow is a manifestation of my childhood. My mom is tribal and in my younger days when I spent my life in the forests, I would be walking and moving on all fours. I used to run faster on all of my four limbs. People would tell me to join the circus and some even wondered if I were an animal or human,” chuckles Rohit, who resides at Paruthippara in the city. Having mastered the art of movement on his own, Rohit has created his own set of flows and further improvised them.

Exercise and discipline were always part of my life, he says. Rohit has been a regular at gyms since he was 18. Having set up his own gym, now Rohit has included animal flow into the exercise routine. “I want to ensure that the movements are graceful. Aesthetics is very important to me. Here I have evolved a hybrid form of workout which mixes weight training, animal flow and calisthenics,” says Rohit, who is the founder of Predator Army Health Club.

As many as 40 people come to Rohit’s gym to learn animal flow. “First I teach them the individual animal poses. And then the transition and movements from one animal to another is taught. I don’t teach it to people with injuries. Other than that, anyone can learn,” says Rohit. But he says that the art requires much focus. “If you are doing weight training, your mind and thoughts can go anywhere. But here, you have to be one with your body and be focused. I am aware of how a finger moves when I am doing a flow,” he adds.  According to him, learning Animal Flow has made a huge impact in his life. 

“It has grounded me and made me calmer. I get to vent out my pain and aggression through it, which makes me composed. I want to reach out to many people through this art form,” he says. Rohit loves the wilderness and the animals. “So, I spend a lot of time observing them in their natural habitat. This has helped me explore this art form and come up with my own movements,” says Rohit who has choreographed 30 flows so far.“The dream is to start a training space in the mountains, where everything is holistic,” he says. Insta : @deadfame_

Animal Flow, the exercise popular in the West, has reached Kerala. Trainer Rohit Prathap is popularising the movement-based regime, which flows more like an art form

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