Special on Teacher's Day: "Murga punishment" converted to movement and physical therapy

If you are over 70 years of age and come from a small town or a village of Haryana, you must have received the "Murga Bano" corporal punishment by your school teachers to discipline you.

On Teachers' Day, many of my elderly Facebook friends remembered this mode of punishment and still paid tributes to teachers for making them strive, struggle and succeed.

In many remote villages of Asian countries, Murga or rooster posture is still used as to cause severe pain and ridicules to erring school students. The posture if acquired for more than 2 minutes becomes a stressful paining position to work as a corporal punishment.

II too have received this punishment in my primary school days at Kurukshetra in Haryana. In receiving punishment, I was forced to take a position resembling that of a rooster or murga by squatting and then rounding the arms behind the knees and firmly holding the ears. With the hefty teacher standing behind with a stick to thrash it I tried to relent despite legs paining and trembling. I would cry and beg pardon with a promise to behave. However, teacher then softly but firmly used to tell to keep the promise.

It has been seen that muscle fatigue starts to set in within 2 or 3 minutes and thereafter the posture becomes severe. After five minutes, for most students, the pain becomes so intensified that that legs start to trembling making it impossible to hold this position any longer to become a physical and psychological torture for students in name of discipline.

However, physical therapists and yoga teachers would tell you that a Murga posturs as Kukutasana under controlled situation and caring environment have great therapeutic value. The posture should be held to the count of ten with relaxation limbering exercise.

Some of the rooster postures can be converted into cross lateral exercises to strengthen the brain and leg muscles. Doing it daily 10 times daily by keeping the posture for 10-15 seconds with a little relaxation each time after striking the posture, it can turns it great yoga pose for development of the brain and leg muscles for better coordination.