My Grandma Personal life: 

Nanammal was born on 24 February 1920 in an agricultural family at Zameen Kaliayapuram, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.At the age of eight, she learnt yoga from her father, eventually mastering more than 50 asanas.

Nanammal’s father and grandfather were both ‘Registered Indian Medicine Practitioners (RIMP)’. Yoga was their family tradition and they were not teaching yoga to anyone outside the family and it stayed within the group. During those days, the primary business of the family was traditional Siddha medicine and agriculture. Her family owned coconut and cashew farms in the Kerala state. Nanammal’s husband was a Siddha practitioner and was into agriculture and cultivation, with whom she moved to Negamam and later to Ganapathy.She cultivated a liking towards naturopathy after her marriage.She has five children, 12 grand children and 11 great-grandchildren.

Nanammal started practising yoga when she was 8 years old. According to Nanammal, her father knew martial arts and had taught her Yoga. She continued practising yoga throughout her life.

Nanammal and her family, follow the traditions passed over to the next generations. The centre taught their traditional style of yoga, which focuses more on Pranayama (Breath control). Over her last five decades, Nanammal trained more than one million students and continued for the remainder of her life to teach 100 students daily. Around 600 of her students, including 36 members of her family, have become ‘Yoga instructors’ teaching students around the world.

AWARDS:

She was affectionately known as Yoga Grandma. For her achievement, Nanammal was conferred with the following awards and citations:

2016 – National Nari Shakti Puraskar award received from former President of India Pranab Mukherjee
2016 – Shwaasa Yoga Organization’s Yoga Ratna award
2018 – India’s fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri News18 reported her, being the oldest recipient of the award.
2018 – Rotary club’s Lifetime achievement award.