Acro - a physical practice that combines yoga and acrobatics, practiced with a partner. Essentially, it builds a practice of the understanding of trust.

Good for: building trust within the body, trust within the community, trusting your partner

Anusara - 'Yoga of the Heart' - centered around the 3 A's (Attitude, Alignment and Action), founded by John Friend

Good for: opening the heart, experience grace, expressing ourselves, physical and mental challenge

Anti gravity - combines traditional mat yoga with postures suspended in a soft fabric hammock. With the help of gravity and the hammocks playfully exploring floating, fluid movements and creating space in the body

Good for: stretching the body beyond your imagination, fun, experiencing the feeling of flying, conquering upside down postures

Ashtanga - fast paced, dynamic, physically demanding, set series of postures, each pose held for 5 breaths, founded by Sri Pattabhi Jois

Good for: losing weight, get a cardio workout, testing physical limits

Barkan - practised in a room heated to 40 Celsius, based on Bikram yoga, but not set poses, founded by Jimmy Barkan

Good for: detoxification

Bikram - practised in a room heated to 40 Celsius, series of set 26 postures, founded by Bikram Choudhury

Good for: detoxification

Forrest - intensely physical and internally focused practice, emphasizes how to carry the trans formative experience off the mat and into daily life. A path to cleansing the emotional and mental blocks from the body, founded by Ana Forrest

Good for: healing the body, overall balance

Hatha - gentle introduction to poses, Hatha simply refers to the practice of physical yoga, so in fact most forms of yoga in the west can be classified as Hatha Yoga. Meaning all the other styles mentioned here are actually Hatha Yoga, they just have been personalised and given a new name. The word 'hatha' means 'ha' sun and 'tha' moon, the yoga of balance, to align and calm the body, mind and spirit in preparation for meditation

Good for: beginners, focusing on breathing, relaxation and meditation, better understanding of ourselves

Hot - similar to Bikram, as in practised in heated room, but not following the 26 set postures

Iyengar - focus is on detailed alignment and breath control, using of props like belts, blocks, bolsters to help the body when it is not ready to get into the posture yet, founded by B.K.S. Iyengar

Good for: healing injuries and chronic ailments, focusing on proper alignment

Jivamukti - it is a physical, ethical and spiritual practice, combining vigorous hatha yoga with reading the scriptures, practising devotion, practising non-violence, music with chanting and meditation, founded by Sharon Gannon and David Life

Good for: pushing physical limits, spiritual introduction, for those who love to sing

Kripalu - the body is the center of your being and you must learn from it as well as accept your body as your best teacher, learn to do postures as they best suit your body, longer hold of postures and deep meditation sessions, founded by Amrit Desai

Kudalini - a physically and mentally challenging spiritual practice, different from a typical yoga class. Kriyas are performed, which are repetitive physical exercises coupled with intense breath work while chanting and meditating, founded by Yogi Bhajan

Good for: advanced practitioners, spiritual searching

Power Yoga - fitness based flowing practice, it originates from the Ashtanga practice mentioned above, except that it does not follow a set sequence

Prenatal - the clue is in the name, yoga practiced during pregnancy

Restorative - sequence typically only involves 5-6 poses, supported by props to allow you to completely relax and rest. Most restorative classes are based on Iyengar Yoga.

Good for: relaxing and soothing the nerves, rejuvenating

Sivananda - revolves around frequent relaxation, emphasizes full yogic breathing, founded by Swami Vishnu-Devananda

Vinyasa Flow - getting into the flow, dynamic practice which links continuous movement and breath together in a dance like way, pace is quick and poses are held for a short time

Good for: testing physical limits, for people who do not like routine and need change

Yin - the opposite of the faster moving practices, in this style poses are held for several minutes at a time. It is designed to target the deeper connective tissues and fascia, restoring length and elasticity

To find out what type of Yoga do I teach please read 'What type of Yoga do you teach?' from the questions and answers section.

You can also play around and find your own style here:

#Miscellaneous #TypesofYoga