Yoga is a coherent system where every technical element is designed in such a way that a person is able to handle unity of mind and body.

Yoga has been present in Cuba for much longer than most people think, explained Pimentel:
Its origins can be traced back to the translation from Sanskrit into Latin, and then into Spanish, of a number of books from India, including several chapters from the Bhagavad-Gita translated by Francisco Mateo de Acosta y Zenea in Havana, 1841, and Matanzas in 1898, long before it came out in Spain.

In 1899-1900 a Mrs. McKinley founded the Raja Yoga Academy by in Santiago de Cuba, where, despite its name, no yoga was ever practiced. It was a kind of fraternity involved in charitable work. However, a year or two later theosophical thought made its debut in Cuba with works on the philosophy and practice of yoga circulating across the island.

By the 1950s, Hatha yoga was being practiced here and the followers of Swami Paramahansa Yogananda-whose "Autobiography of a Yogi" was well-known in the Western Hemisphere-founded the devotional Asociación de Autorrealización (Self-Realization Association) in 1957, which is still active.

From 1975 until his death in 1985, Freemason Ramón Aristes Guinea taught large classes of Hatha yoga in the Llansó Masonic Home.
We were naturally curious as to what brought Pimentel to practice something that was little known in Cuba at the time:

I used to play chess and at the same time enjoyed physical activity, so when I found out about Hatha Yoga I became very excited because I had found exercise and meditation—the physical and mental aspect - along with the possibility of an understanding of life itself. I began training in 1971 and teaching techniques of Hatha and Raya yoga in 1982, trying to cultivate a Cuban style where the student-teacher relationship is more flexible, closer and warmer.

From 1990 to 1994, I taught large public classes of more than 200 students and later branched out to churches, theatres, art galleries, social clubs, health facilities, and even the National Art Institute, the Cuban National Choir, and Havana's Science Park.

The Cuban Yoga Association was founded in 1990. The association is neither religious nor philosophical and is dedicated to teaching yoga to the community. It has local branches in more than half of the island's provinces. There are programs for fighting stress and asthma that are registered with the National Institute of Sports and Recreation (INDER), and classes aimed at older adults and women. My wife, Professor Elsa Hermida, has undertaken a project in the Paediatric Ward of the Havana Oncology Hospital that includes recreational activities for children, as well as for the mothers accompanying them.

Some 12,000 people in Cuba have taken three-month yoga courses. The Association has also organized numerous national and international yoga conferences, workshops and meditation retreats.

In addition to people whose occupations lead them to choose yoga—such as dancers, musicians or scuba divers attracted by the benefits that concentration, relaxation or proper respiratory regulation may bring to them - we asked Professor Pimentel what other motivation there may be to explain the increasingly popular interest in yoga on the island.

People who suffer from obesity, different types of addictions, osteo-muscular pains, asthma, stress, insomnia, sexual dysfunctions, psychological conflicts (divorce, the loss of a loved one, communication issues with offspring), come to us and we help - through their own selves and potential - to find relief for many of their sufferings. Others, who also become interested in yoga, although to a lesser degree, are individuals who wish to change their lifestyle. Through yoga both groups increase their self-esteem, live in harmony with themselves, and understand the 'other person's' position, beyond intolerance or fundamentalism of any kind.

If this centuries-old practice wins more followers among Cubans, it is largely due to the determination, passion and vocation of Havana's gentle and resolute yoga master, Eduardo Pimentel Vázquez