Put an end to botox and plastic surgery, try face yoga

ASLI SAĞLAM

Yogi Adnan Çabuk and Lourdes Doblito-Çabuk are trying to spread the philosophy of yoga in Istanbul. Yoga is their life style, it is not a business for them. Lourdes is 57 and Çabuk is 65. It is unbelievable that they don’t look a day over 40. They both look so young, fit and energetic.

They have an ashram (a house for yoga) in the Nişantaşı district. They also opened a summer ashram in the southern city of Alanya. They built a cottage-like house that is located on the lower slopes of the Taurus Mountains for people to come and learn yoga.

Their place in Nişantaşı is open to anyone interested in learning what “real” yoga is. Lourdes will teach beauty yoga and yoga in Richmond Nua Wellness-Spa, which is located in Sapanca, an hour drive from Istanbul.

Çabuk is the person who had provided people with an idea about yoga 10 years ago in Turkey. The story behind him becoming a yogi starts with him spontaneously finding a book called “Buddha’s life.”

When he finished reading the book he realized he was in a way living the philosophy of it. He said to himself, “the only difference is that Buddha lived in the mountains, and I live in the city.”

He was born in Mardin but he moved to New York and started teaching aerobics. He quit his job because his knees got injured due to jumping for an hour everyday during those four years.

One day he discovered Thai Chi Chuan, a Chinese Yoga, which is like dancing. “As soon as I saw the man doing Thai Chi Chuan, I realized that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life,” said Çabuk.

He met with a lot of Thai Chi Chuan masters but he didn’t find them close by until he saw a small flyer and met a master. He took classes for 10 years.

Çabuk said that Indian Yoga and Chinese Yoga are different: You sit while you are doing Indian Yoga but you dance when you are doing Chinese Yoga. Çabuk is a nomadic person. He says that he has seen more than 40 countries and has lived in England, Sweden, Italy, Lebanon, the United States and in India.

Before he returned to Turkey he used to travel between New York, India and Turkey. He met his wife Yogini Madame Lourdes in the Philippines. At that time, Lourdes was selling crystals.

She started doing yoga when she was very young. Now she is an expert in beauty yoga. She started yoga and learning about the various stones in the Philippines. After having four babies, her body and face were deformed.

Her father advised her to take care of herself because she had started looking fat. With the help of her mother she started to eat healthy and practice yoga. After her body responded to that in a week she turned it into a profession. It was 1981 when she started working on yoga.

Çabuk gave her the idea that she needs to share this with other people. After she appeared on a TV channel, people started showing a lot of interest in face yoga. Lourdes really likes Turkish people, and she thinks they are hospitable.

Çabuk describes yoga as integrity. The universe is one body and people are pieces of the universe. “We are the energy,” said Çabuk, “There are different levels of energies. Once you improve yourself physically, you have to improve your soul and that’s the point where you find yourself in the universe. When the energy inside us and the energy of the universe meet that’s yoga,” he said.

He said there is only one yoga but it has eight levels: Ethics, physics, correct breathing, energy, concentration, meditation and enlightenment.

Lourdes’s beauty yoga consists of correct breathing, healthy eating, exercising and positive thinking. In these workouts physiological functions are reorganized through nutrition, posture, eliminating stress, purification and exercises.

“The beauty that one sees in a person is a projection of his inner as well as the reflection of his outer unseen energies. Hence one’s beauty is a condensation of the invisible energies to a material visible form,” said Lourdes.

It includes physical especially facial exercises. However, it is not just a series of exercises but a complex series of practices as well as exercises derived from a combination of different systems and knowledge on self awareness, concentrated on particular benefits toward the physical, mental, spiritual and emotional health of an individual. According to Lourdes beauty comes with youth.

“My aim is to share my knowledge and experiences with everyone interested with a 360 perspective. Ageing is inevitable, however, to age gracefully is preferable,” said Lourdes.

She also gives some tips for men and women; men should rub their faces with apple and women with tomatoes.

The Çabuks’ also give private lessons and they go to big companies to teach yoga after working hours.

They said, don’t be scared of Yoga, it is getting to know yourself.

Richmond Nua Wellness-Spa – Sapanca

Tel: 0264 582 26 86

Address: Siddashram Yoga Center

Nişantaşı / Istanbul

Tel: 0212 230 1547
Who is Yogi Adnan Çabuk?

He was a Fine Arts student in Adnan Çoker’s studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Istanbul and simultaneously he modeled for “Vakko,” which is a big fashion brand in Turkey, and played pantomime with Oğuz Aral. Çabuk became one of the pioneers of the popular hippie movement of the time in Turkey and he headed a European hippie group with whom he hitchhiked across Europe. He spent 30 years of his life in Sweden, London, Beirut, Italy, the United States and India both working and conducting research.

He first encountered yoga while teaching aerobics, Chinese yoga and Tai Chi Chuan in a YMCA in New York. From there his interest shifted to spirituality and yoga. His thirst for spiritual knowledge grew as he traveled to different countries in the Far East such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, China, Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet and finally India where he researched and studied Hatha Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, and Tantric Yoga.

He got his first certificate as a yoga instructor at the Swami Sivananda School, then at Dr. Kurup ‘s “Sanjivani Holistic Farm” where he trained for Holistic healing.

He furthered his studies and became a disciple of Guruji Dr. Ananth Atre from whom he learned “Kundalini Yoga,” its principles and was given a hand (authority or blessing) to teach.

Who is Yogini Madame Lourdes?

Lourdes Julian Doplito-Çabuk was born in the Philippines in 1950. She graduated as a medical technician from the Santo Tomas University in the Philippines. Having two young children at that time, she decided to change her career due to the nature of her work in the hospital laboratory.

Because she was interested in beauty, arts and spirituality she ventured through different seminars, courses etc. She met her first guru in 1970. She was a student of Osho Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and began working with Crystal Healing stones and Yoga.

Lourdes owned a women’s boutique and a flower shop between 1970 and 1990 in Manila, Philippines. In 1990 she was a director and a flower shop designer in Manhattan, New York. She also worked as an assistant and a decorator at a famous New York interior design label. Lourdes has four children and six grandchildren. The Hatha and Kundalini Yoga teachings by her mentor have changed her life.