Don't stretch yourself

More Chinese are taking up yoga and a flood of studios teaching the discipline are opening across the country. But as Liu Zhihua finds out, inexperienced students may be risking strain and injury.

Yoga is now a mainstream exercise regime worldwide, a far cry from the 1960s and '70s when you had to go to a retreat in India to practice.

In the new millennium, it is gaining popularity at rocket speed in China. Although there are no authorized statistics on the number of yoga shala in the country, a simple search online for such a studio will pop out hundreds of results in any big city.