About Yoga
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (the canonical work in yoga philosophy) describes yoga as follows:
“Yogas citta-vritti-nirodhah” “Yoga is the stilling of the changing states of mind”
Original yogis would mainly practice meditation (with the above aim of stilling the mind), with perhaps a few asana (posture) thrown in to help open their hips to support their long seated meditations. The number of postures practised was gradually increased until we have the multitude of asana people practise today.
Patanjali goes on to describe what he calls the “8 limbs of yoga”. These are namely:
- Yamas (Restraints – things you shouldn’t do)
- Niyamas (opposite to restraints – things you should do)
- Asana (Postural practice)
- Pranayama (Breath practice)
- Pratyahara (Sense withdrawal – tuning inwards)
- Dharana (Practice in focussing attention)
- Dhyana (Meditative absorption)
- Samadhi (enlightenment)
You can see that, whereas nowadays people often think of yoga as a purely physical practice, it was initially a whole host of activities linked under this one banner of yoga.
In the 1900s, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya began teaching what we now understand to be modern postural yoga. Some of his most famous students then went on to teach some of the key yoga styles we continue to practice today:
- BKS Iyengar – Iyengar yoga
- K. Pattabhi Jois – Ashtanga yoga
- Indra Devi – credited with helping spread yoga worldwide
- T.K.V. Desikachar – Individualised yoga therapy
Since then, other styles of yoga have developed from these schools including vinyasa yoga, hot yoga, yogasana etc.
I teach vinyasa, ashtanga, and yin yoga and I would love to share these practices with you.
