Sivananda, Ashtanga, Power yoga, Iyengar, Bikram, Kundalini, Bikram, Jivamukthi, Vinyasa, so many styles and lots of arguments!! Why?

Yoga means union, union of the individual soul becoming one with the supreme.

Until 1930 when the great Krishnamacharya and his students (Pattabhi Jois , B.K.S. Iyengar and T.K.V. Desikachar) came in to the scene when you talked about yoga , you referred to Pathangali or Bagavad Geetha.

But why are there so many styles of yoga now?
Why do practitioners of each school dislike the others?
Why do the followers of each style insist that their type is better?

We are all yogis. So why do we insist that other styles are inferior to ours?… Don’t tell me that it is not the case! I see it all the time. Not only the students, but even the teachers and gurus!One of my students tried a different class and was told by the direction of the centre that she should only attend their classes and that their style is the better!

I personally think that each type of yoga has its weakness and each type has its strengths.

Some are spiritual (Kundalini yoga), some are physical (Ashtanga, Power yoga), some concentrate on alignment and discipline (Iyengar).

I like Sivananda where you can experience the breathing techniques and sun salutations. I enjoy Ashtanga for its physically demanding nature. I benefit from Iyengar where your practice focuses on position. So why do I have to limit myself for one type of yoga?

We all know that the goal of yoga is samadhi… self realization. Asanas, pranayamas and meditation are tools to attain that goal. As the great Vivegananda once said ‘all the rivers will merge in the see in the end’! So all type of yogas (even though here we are discussing the physical aspects of yoga) have the same goal... so why do we have to argue among our selves?

We should have an open mind. We should acknowledge and accept that other types of yoga have their benefits and ours has weakness too!

There are students who are primarily interested in the spiritual path of yoga and not concerned with the physical aspects. And then there are some who are only interested in the physical side! But here I am talking about students who are interested in both angles of yoga; physical and spiritual!

Personally I think a proper yoga class should have at least 15 minutes dedicated to breathing techniques, 15 minutes of sun salutation and 10 minutes for relaxation. It should include headstand and variations, forward-bend and variations, backward-bend and variations, balancing postures and warrior postures.

So we, the peace loving yogis, should not argue amongst ourselves – we should have an open mind.

In the past I have tried Sivananda, Iyengar, Ashtanga, Satyananda and liked all their approach. And I teach a combination of all these styles. The feed back from my students suggests that this is a winning combination. But I am sure that there are some yogis that will disagree with me. But then this is only my personal opinion.