Dehashakti Sports

The Auroville schools’ physical education programme is run under the name Dehashakti Sports at the School Sports Complex near Dana. It aims to provide a comprehensive programme for physical development by way of activities that incorporate challenges and the development of mobility, control, health, fitness, strength, stamina, and body skills. Emphasis is placed on developing a sound team spirit, fairness in play, and manifesting a good attitude during games and competitions.

"The perfection of the body, as great a perfection as we can bring about by the means at our disposal, must be the ultimate aim of physical culture. Perfection is the true aim of all cultures, the spiritual and psychic, the mental and the vital, and it must also be the aim of our physical culture. If our seeking is for total perfection of the being, the physical part of it cannot be left aside; for the body is the material basis, and the body is the instrument we have to use.

                                  __Sri Aurobindo

"The Supramental Manifestation upon Earth"

Dehashakti School of Physical Education started in the early 1990s as a common physical education programme for students in Auroville schools. A programme was developed inspired by the all-around physical education practised daily by children and adults in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Students take the bus from their schools to the Dehashakti campus, a large area with facilities for games, sports and athletics, where school sports teachers lead groups of students in the daily programme.

In recent years Dehashakti has become more than a school sports programme, with the addition of the Auroville Budokan, Gym and more activities for adults and children. Dehashakti is transitioning into a campus for all-round physical culture and education.

Dehashakti Sports aims to provide an all-round educative programme to our students through systematic training and planned activities. We hope that this experience will inspire them to strive for an integral awareness — i.e. of their mental and vital beings as much as of their physical — while working towards a conscious control over their growing bodies. We aim to inculcate in them the drive for continuous and ever-growing progress through congenial and joyful exercises and training in the field, track, and court disciplines that we can presently offer.

The pleasure of being together, the impetus to excel, to do one’s best, to strive always towards greater perfection, are legitimate inclinations and motivating forces in cultivating in oneself the qualities of true sportsmanship.

School sports programme

Activities offered as part of the school sports programme depend on the age of the students and include a variety of individual sports (athletics, swimming, gymnastics, table tennis) and collective sports (softball, basketball, volleyball, hockey, handball, futsal and football, and other games). Children from grade 1 to grade 4 from Deepanam and Transition schools attend the regular programme.

All students participate in our "Aurolympics" competitions twice a year, introduced as a way to increase the efforts and the skills of each student in their capacities. These competitions provide a frame for a schedule of training throughout the year and are an occasion for all participants to strive to achieve excellence. The focus is not on winning but on doing one's best and making progress, learning values like team spirit, endurance, self-discipline and respect for others and self.

Building a Physical Education Centre

The growing number of campus activities offer specialized practice and development, with activities and facilities open to participants according to their interests. Offerings currently include Aikido, Mixed Martial Arts, Capoeira, Ninjutsu, archery, general fitness & weight training, and fire-juggling These activities welcome Aurovilians, Newcomers and volunteers.

Teachers and facilitators tend to be dedicated to their chosen activity and offer it in a spirit of sharing their experience, meanwhile progressing along with their students. Integrated with the school sports programme are the values of harmony, progress and perfection and the aim to realize these goals in all activities.