Yoga as exercise

File:Prajnaparamita Java Side Detail.JPG. Statue from Java, 13th century.]]

{{main|Yoga#History}}

The Sanskrit noun योग {{IAST|yoga}}, cognate with English "yoke", is derived from the root {{IAST|yuj}} "to attach, join, harness, yoke".{{cite book |last=White |first=David Gordon |author-link=David Gordon White |title=Yoga in Practice |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ii7D-bR0osC&pg=PA3 |year=2011 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-14086-5 |page=3}} Its ancient spiritual and philosophical goal was to unite the human spirit with the divine.{{cite dictionary |last=Monier-Williams |first=Monier |author-link=Monier Monier-Williams |title=Yoga |dictionary=A Sanskrit-English Dictionary |year=1899 |location=Delhi |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia/ebooks/mw/0800/mw__0889.html |page=856}} The branch of yoga that makes use of physical postures is Haṭha yoga.{{sfn|Mallinson|2011|p=770}}{{Cite book |last=Jain |first=Andrea |author-link=Andrea Jain |chapter=The Early History of Modern Yoga |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion |url=http://oxfordre.com/religion/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-163 |publisher=Oxford Research Encyclopedias |access-date=23 February 2019 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.163 |date=July 2016|isbn=978-0-19-934037-8 }} The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha means "force", alluding to its use of physical techniques.{{sfn|Mallinson|2011|p=770}}

Asana (posture) is described in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras II.29 as the third of the eight limbs of yoga. Sutra II.46 defines asana as that which is steady and comfortable.Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Book II:29, 46{{cite book |last1=Feuerstein |first1=Georg |author1-link=Georg Feuerstein |first2=Ken |last2=Wilber |author2-link=Ken Wilber |title=The Yoga Tradition |publisher=Motilal Banarsidass Publishers |year=2002 |chapter=The Wheel of Yoga |isbn=978-81-208-1923-8 |pages=108ff}}

{{main|Haṭha yoga}}

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|image1 = Mode of action of Mudras.svg

|caption1 = Haṭha yoga made use of Mudras to attempt to control supposed vital forces in the subtle body.{{sfn|Mallinson|Singleton|2017|pp=Chapters 5 and 6, especially pages 228–229}}

|image2 = Shatkarmas.svg

|caption2 = Haṭha yoga used Satkarmas with the intention of purifying the subtle body.{{sfn|Mallinson|Singleton|2017|pp=xxviii-xxxii, 46, 49-50, 71-79}}

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Haṭha yoga flourished among secretive ascetic groups such as Nath yogins in South Asia from c. 1100-c. 1900.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pages=28–29, 173}}{{sfn|Bühnemann|2007|pp=20-21}}{{cite web |last1=Mallinson |first1=James |author-link=James Mallinson (author) |title=A Response to Mark Singleton's Yoga Body by JamesMallinson |url=https://www.academia.edu/1146607 |access-date=3 July 2019 |date=9 December 2011a}} revised from American Academy of Religions conference, San Francisco, 19 November 2011. Instruction was directly from guru to individual pupil, in a long-term relationship.{{sfn|Iyengar|1979|pp=27-29}} It was associated with religions, especially Hinduism{{sfn|Bühnemann|2007|pp=20-21}} but also Jainism and Buddhism. Its objectives were to manipulate vital fluids to enable absorption and ultimately liberation.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=29}}{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=14}} It consisted of practices including purifications, postures (asanas), locks, the directed gaze, seals, and rhythmic breathing.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=28}} These were claimed to provide supernatural powers including healing, destruction of poisons, invisibility, and shape-shifting.Hemachandra's Yogashastra 1.8–9{{sfn|Mallinson|Singleton|2017|pp=385–387}} Yogins wore little or no clothing; their bodies were sometimes smeared with cremation ash as a reminder of their forthcoming deaths.{{cite web |title=Previously Untold Yoga History Sheds New Light |url=http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/466 |last=Cushman |first=Anne |author-link=Anne Cushman |work=Yoga Journal |date=Jul–Aug 1999 |page=43 |quote=I thought of the naked yogis I had seen on the banks of the Ganges, their skin smeared with ashes from the cremation pyre to remind themselves of the body's impermanence, their foreheads painted with the insignia of Shiva, the god of destruction. I couldn't resist. "Well, traditionally, you would carry a trident and cover your body with the ashes of the dead," I told her. ... "But alternatively," I said, "a leotard and tights will work just fine."}} Equipment, too, was scanty; sometimes yogins used a tiger or deer skin as a rug to meditate on.{{cite book |last=Adiswarananda |first=Swami|title=Meditation & Its Practices: A Definitive Guide to Techniques and Traditions of Meditation in Yoga and Vedanta |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1jTP_9NoRIgC&pg=PA204 |year=2007 |publisher=SkyLight Paths Publishing |isbn=978-1-59473-105-1 |page=204 |quote=The sacred texts and traditions suggest that the seat be made of tiger skin, deer skin, wool, silk or cotton, that it be used exclusively by the aspirant, and only for the practice of meditation.}} Haṭha yoga made use of a small number of asanas, mainly seated; in particular, there were very few standing poses before 1900.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|page=29}}{{sfn|Singleton|2010|page=161}} They were practised slowly, often holding a position for long periods.{{sfn|Mallinson|Singleton|2017|p=93}} The practice of asanas was a minor preparatory aspect of spiritual work.{{sfn|Bühnemann|2007|pp=20-21}} Yogins followed a strict vegetarian diet, excluding stimulants such as tea, coffee or alcohol.{{sfn|Lidell|1983|pp=78-87}} Their yoga was taught without payment; gurus were supported by gifts{{cite web |last1=Neehan |first1=Jack |title=Yoga: James Mallinson uncovers the ancient traditions of the great yogis |url=https://www.soas.ac.uk/blogs/study/yoga-james-mallinson-research/ |publisher=SOAS |access-date=5 March 2019 |date=21 March 2017 |archive-date=6 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190306043458/https://www.soas.ac.uk/blogs/study/yoga-james-mallinson-research/ |url-status=dead }} and the philosophy was anti-consumerist.{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=284}}{{-}}

{{further|Early modern yoga}}

File:Origins of Yoga as exercise.svg

According to one theory, the system of physical education practised in the 19th-century Young Men's Christian Association, adapted by ex-military gymnasts for the schooling system in colonial British India, became the default form of mass-drill, and this influenced the "modernized hatha yoga".{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=84–88}} According to the yoga scholar Suzanne Newcombe, modern yoga in India is a blend of Western gymnastics with postures from Haṭha yoga in India in the 20th century.{{sfn|Newcombe|2017}}

From the 1850s onwards, there developed in India a culture of physical exercise to counter the colonial stereotype of supposed "degeneracy" of Indians compared to the British,{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=95–97}}{{cite journal |last1=Rosselli |first1=J. |title=The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal |journal=Past & Present |date=February 1980 |issue=86 |pages=121–148 |jstor=650742|doi=10.1093/past/86.1.121 |pmid=11615074}} a belief reinforced by then-current ideas of Lamarckism and eugenics.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=97–98}}{{sfn|Kevles|1995|p=58}} This culture was taken up from the 1880s to the early 20th century by Indian nationalists such as Tiruka, who taught exercises and unarmed combat techniques under the guise of yoga.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=98–106}}{{sfn|Tiruka|1977|p=v}} The German bodybuilder Eugen Sandow was acclaimed on his 1905 visit to India, at which time he was already a "cultural hero" in the country.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=89}} The anthropologist Joseph Alter suggests that Sandow was the person who had the most influence on modern yoga.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=89}}{{sfn|Alter|2004|p=28}} The first handbook of asanas in English, and the first to be illustrated with photographs, was Seetharaman Sundaram's 1928 Yogic Physical Culture.{{cite web |title=About School Of Yoga |url=https://schoolofyoga.in/school-classical-yoga-about |publisher=School of Yoga |access-date=24 March 2019}}{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|pp=152–178}}

{{further|Postural yoga in India}}

File:Bukh Parighasana Parsvottanasana Navasana.jpg's 1924 Primary Gymnastics{{sfn|Bukh|2010}} resembling Parighasana, Parsvottanasana, and Navasana, supporting the suggestion that Krishnamacharya derived some of his asanas from the gymnastics culture of his time{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=161, 200-203}}]]

Yoga was introduced to the Western world by the spiritual leader Vivekananda's 1893 visit to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago,{{sfn|Syman|2010|pp=37–46}} and his 1896 book Raja Yoga. However, he rejected Haṭha yoga and its "entirely" physical practices such as asanas as difficult and ineffective for spiritual growth, out of a widely shared distaste for India's wandering yogins.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=70–75}} Yoga asanas were brought to America by the yoga teacher Yogendra.{{sfn|Newcombe|2017}}{{cite news |last1=Mishra |first1=Debashree |title=Once Upon A Time: From 1918, this Yoga institute has been teaching generations, creating history |url=http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/once-upon-a-time-from-1918-this-yoga-institute-has-been-teaching-generations-creating-history/|newspaper=Indian Express |date=3 July 2016 |location=Mumbai}} He founded a branch of The Yoga Institute in New York state in 1919,{{sfn|Caycedo|1966|p=194}}{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=183}} starting to make Haṭha yoga acceptable, seeking scientific evidence for its health benefits,{{sfn|Shearer|2020|p=251}} and writing books such as his 1928 Yoga Asanas Simplified{{sfn|Yogendra|1928}} and his 1931 Yoga Personal Hygiene.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=116–117}} The flowing sequences of salute to the sun, Surya Namaskar, now accepted as yoga and containing popular asanas such as Uttanasana and upward and downward dog poses,{{sfn|Mehta|1990|pp=146-147}}{{sfn|Lidell|1983|pp=34-35}} were popularized by the Rajah of Aundh, Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi, in the 1920s.{{cite news |last=Doctor |first=Vikram |title=Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi: The man who promoted Surya Namaskar |url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/bhawanrao-shrinivasrao-pant-pratinidhi-the-man-who-promoted-surya-namaskar/articleshow/64607546.cms |work=The Economic Times (India) |date=15 June 2018}}{{sfn|Pratinidhi|1938}}{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|pp=180–207}}

In 1924, the yoga teacher Kuvalayananda founded the Kaivalyadhama Health and Yoga Research Center in Maharashtra, combining asanas with gymnastics, and like Yogendra seeking a scientific and medical basis for yogic practices.{{cite web |last1=Wathen |first1=Grace |title=Kaivalyadhama & Yoga Postures |url=http://www.livestrong.com/article/482891-kaivalyadhama-yoga-postures |publisher=LiveStrong |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111112192447/http://www.livestrong.com/article/482891-kaivalyadhama-yoga-postures |archive-date=12 November 2011 |date=1 July 2011}}{{sfn|Alter|2004|p=31}}{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|pp=100–141}}

File:Krishnamacharya mysoreSchool.jpg teaching yoga in Mysore, 1930s]]

In 1925, Kuvalayananda's rival Paramahansa Yogananda, having moved from India to America, set up the Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles, and taught yoga, including asanas, breathing, chanting and meditation, to "tens of thousands of Americans".{{cite web |last1=Ricci |first1=Jeanne |title=Paramahansa Yogananda |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/paramahansa-yogananda |work=Yoga Journal |access-date=30 November 2018 |date=28 August 2007}} In 1923, Yogananda's younger brother, Bishnu Charan Ghosh, founded the Ghosh College of Yoga and Physical Culture in Calcutta.{{sfn|Newcombe|2017}}

Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (1888–1989), "the father of modern yoga",{{cite web |author1=Mohan, A. G. |author1-link=A. G. Mohan |author2=Mohan, Ganesh |url=http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2590 |title=Memories of a Master |work=Yoga Journal |date=29 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100306162156/https://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2590 |archive-date=6 March 2010 |url-status=dead}}{{cite web |author=Anderson, Diane |url=http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2605 |title=The YJ Interview: Partners in Peace |work=Yoga Journal |date=9 August 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100902050638/http://www.yogajournal.com/wisdom/2605 |archive-date=2 September 2010 |url-status=dead}} claimed to have spent seven years with one of the few masters of Haṭha yoga then living, Ramamohana Brahmachari, at Lake Manasarovar in Tibet, from 1912 to 1918.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=175-210}}{{cite web |last1=Pages Ruiz |first1=Fernando |title=Krishnamacharya's Legacy: Modern Yoga's Inventor |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/krishnamacharya-s-legacy |work=Yoga Journal |access-date=26 November 2018 |date=28 August 2007}} He studied under Kuvalayananda in the 1930s, and then in his yogashala in the Jaganmohan Palace in Mysore created "a marriage of Haṭha yoga, wrestling exercises, and modern Western gymnastic movement, and unlike anything seen before in the yoga tradition."{{cite web |last=Singleton |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Singleton (yoga scholar) |title=The Ancient & Modern Roots of Yoga |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/yoga-s-greater-truth |work=Yoga Journal |date=4 February 2011}} The Maharajah of Mysore Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV was a leading advocate of physical culture in India, and a neighbouring hall of his palace was used to teach Surya Namaskar classes, then considered to be gymnastic exercises. Krishnamacharya adapted these sequences of exercises into his flowing vinyasa style of yoga.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=175-210}}{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|pp=234–248}} The yoga scholar Mark Singleton noted that gymnastic systems like Niels Bukh's were popular in physical culture in India at that time, and that they contained many postures similar to Krishnamacharya's new asanas.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=161, 200-203}}{{sfn|Bukh|2010}}

File:Spread of postural yoga across the world.svg

Among Krishnamacharya's pupils were people who became influential yoga teachers themselves: the Russian Eugenie V. Peterson, known as Indra Devi (from 1937), who moved to Hollywood, taught yoga to celebrities, and wrote the bestselling{{cite journal |last1=Schrank |first1=Sarah |title=American Yoga: The Shaping of Modern Body Culture in the United States |journal=American Studies |date=2014 |volume=53 |issue=1 |pages=169–182 |url=https://journals.ku.edu/amerstud/article/view/4730|doi=10.1353/ams.2014.0021 |s2cid=144698814 |url-access=subscription }} book Forever Young, Forever Healthy;{{sfn|Devi|1953}} Pattabhi Jois (from 1927), who founded the flowing style Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga whose Mysore style makes use of repetitions of Surya Namaskar, in 1948,{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=88, 175-210}} which in turn led to Power Yoga;{{cite web |last1=Kest |first1=Bryan |author-link=Bryan Kest |title=The History of Power Yoga |url=https://poweryoga.com/blog/power-yoga-history/ |publisher=Power Yoga |access-date=1 January 2019|date=2017-09-04}} and B.K.S. Iyengar (from 1933), his brother-in-law, who founded Iyengar Yoga,{{sfn|Iyengar|2006|pp=xvi–xx}}{{sfn|Mohan|2010|p=11}} with its first centre in Britain.{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|p=384}} Together they made yoga popular as exercise and brought it to the Western world.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=88, 175-210}} Iyengar's 1966 book Light on Yoga popularised yoga asanas worldwide with what the scholar-practitioner Norman Sjoman calls its "clear no-nonsense descriptions and the obvious refinement of the illustrations",{{sfn|Sjoman|1999|p=39}} though the degree of precision it calls for is missing from earlier yoga texts.{{sfn|Sjoman|1999|p=47}}

Other Indian schools of yoga took up the new style of asanas, but continued to emphasize Haṭha yoga's spiritual goals and practices to varying extents. The Divine Life Society was founded by Sivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh in 1936. His many disciples include Swami Vishnudevananda, who founded the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres, starting in 1959; Swami Satyananda of the Bihar School of Yoga, a major centre of Haṭha yoga teacher training, founded in 1963;{{sfn|Mallinson|2011|p=779}}{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=213, note 14}} and Swami Satchidananda of Integral Yoga, founded in 1966.{{sfn|Mallinson|2011|p=779}} Vishnudevananda published his Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga in 1960,{{sfn|Vishnudevananda|1988}} with a list of asanas that substantially overlaps with Iyengar's, sometimes with different names for the same poses.{{sfn|Sjoman|1999|pp=87–89}}{{efn|The different names are sometimes closely connected. For example, Vishnudevananda's Anjaneyasana 2 is Iyengar's Hanumanasana; Anjani is Hanuman's mother, and Anjaneya is a matronymic for Hanuman.{{cite web |last1=Gaia Staff |title=Anjaneyasana: The Lunge Pose |url=https://www.gaia.com/article/lunge-pose-anjaneyasana |publisher=Gaia |date=27 September 2016 |access-date=6 July 2019}}}} Jois's asana names almost exactly match Iyengar's.{{sfn|Sjoman|1999|p=50}}

{{further|Yoga in America}}

File:Yoga in public.jpg.]]

Three changes around the 1960s allowed yoga as exercise to become a worldwide commodity. People were for the first time able to travel freely around the world: consumers could go to the east; Indians could migrate to Europe and America; and business people and religious leaders could go where they liked to sell their wares. Secondly, people across the Western world became disillusioned with organised religion, and started to look for alternatives. And thirdly, yoga became an uncontroversial form of exercise suitable for mass consumption, unlike the more religious or meditational forms of modern yoga such as Siddha Yoga or Transcendental Meditation.{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=43}} This involved the dropping of many traditional requirements on the practice of yoga, such as giving alms, being celibate, studying the Hindu scriptures, and retreating from society.{{sfn|Jain|2015|pp=66-67}}

From the 1970s, yoga as exercise spread across many countries of the world, changing as it did so, and becoming "an integral part of (primarily) urban cultures worldwide", to the extent that the word yoga in the Western world now means the practice of asanas, typically in a class.{{efn|The yoga scholar De Michelis notes that to speakers of Indic languages, yoga has a "quite different" semantic range, including meditation, prayer, ritual and devotional practices, ethical behaviour, and "secret esoteric techniques" that average English speakers would not consider to be yoga.}}{{cite journal |last=De Michelis |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth De Michelis |title=A Preliminary Survey of Modern Yoga Studies |journal=Asian Medicine, Tradition and Modernity |volume=3 |issue=1 |year=2007 |pages=1–19 |doi=10.1163/157342107X207182 |url=https://wzukusers.storage.googleapis.com/user-31520575/documents/5a57bf9c24c23ZrCu301/Survey_of_Modern_Yoga_De_Michelis_2007.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190102002108/https://wzukusers.storage.googleapis.com/user-31520575/documents/5a57bf9c24c23ZrCu301/Survey_of_Modern_Yoga_De_Michelis_2007.pdf |archive-date=2 January 2019 |url-status=live }} For example, Iyengar Yoga reached South Africa in 1979 with the opening of its institute at Pietermaritzburg;{{cite web |title=History |url=http://bksiyengar.co.za/about/history/ |publisher=Iyengar Yoga Institute, South Africa |access-date=18 July 2019}} its Association of South East & East Asia was founded in 2009.{{sfn|Newcombe|2014|pp=147–167}} The spread of Yoga in America was assisted by the television show Lilias, Yoga and You, hosted by Lilias Folan; it ran from 1970 to 1999.{{sfn|Gates|2006|pp=61–64}}{{sfn|Schneider|2003|pp=10-15}} In Australia, by 2005 some 12% of the population practised yoga in a class or at home.{{cite journal |last1=Penman |first1=Stephen |last2=Stevens |first2=Philip |last3=Cohen |first3=Marc |last4=Jackson |first4=Sue |title=Yoga in Australia: Results of a national survey |journal=International Journal of Yoga |volume=5 |issue=2 |year=2012 |pages=92–101 |issn=0973-6131 |doi=10.4103/0973-6131.98217|pmid=22869991 |pmc=3410203 |doi-access=free }} As a valuable business, yoga has in turn been used in advertising, sometimes for yoga-related products, sometimes for other goods and services.{{cite news |last=Lane |first=Megan |title=The Tyranny of Yoga |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3174356.stm |access-date=13 July 2022 |work=BBC News |date=9 October 2003}}

The market for yoga grew, argues the scholar of religion Andrea Jain, with the creation of an "endless"{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=73}} variety of second-generation yoga brands, saleable products, "constructed and marketed for immediate consumption", based on earlier developments.{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=73}} For example, in 1997 John Friend, once a financial analyst,{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=74}} who had intensively studied both the postural Iyengar Yoga and the non-postural Siddha Yoga, founded Anusara Yoga. Friend likened the choice of his yoga over other brands to choosing "a fine restaurant" over "a fast-food joint." The New York Times Magazine headed its piece on him "The Yoga Mogul", while the historian of yoga Stefanie Syman{{sfn|Syman|2010}} argued that Friend had "very self-consciously" created his own yoga community.{{sfn|Jain|2015|pp=74, 88-94}}{{cite news |last1=Swartz |first1=Mimi |title=The Yoga Mogul |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/magazine/25Yoga-t.html |work=The New York Times Magazine |date=21 July 2010}} For example, Friend published his own teacher training manual, held workshops, conferences, and festivals, marketed his own brand of yoga mats and water bottles, and prescribed ethical guidelines.{{sfn|Jain|2015|pp=90-91}} When Friend did not live up to the brand's high standards, he apologised publicly and took steps to protect the brand, in 2012 stepping back from running it and appointing a CEO.{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=92}}

Jain states that yoga is becoming "part of the pop culture around the world".{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=xvii}} Alter writes that it illustrates "transnational transmutation and the blurring of consumerism, holistic health, and embodied mysticism—as well as good old-fashioned Orientalism."{{sfn|Alter|2004|p=247 (ch. 1, note 7)}} Singleton argues that the commodity is the yoga body itself, its "spiritual possibility"{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=174}} signified by the "lucent skin of the yoga model",{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=174}} a beautiful image endlessly sold back to the yoga-practising public "as an irresistible commodity of the holistic, perfectible self".{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=174}}

{{anchor|National Yoga Month|International Day of Yoga}}

In 2008, the United States Department of Health and Human Services labelled September as National Yoga Month.{{cite web |last=Croteau |first=Jeanne |title=September is National Yoga Month — How You Can Get Started |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannecroteau/2019/09/02/september-is-national-yoga-month--how-you-can-get-started/ |work=Forbes |access-date=5 October 2020}} From 2015, at the suggestion of India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, an annual International Day of Yoga has been held on 21 June.[http://www.unic.org.in/display.php?E=13712&K=Yoga UN Declared 21 June as International Day of Yoga] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160709170015/http://www.unic.org.in/display.php?E=13712&K=Yoga |date=9 July 2016 }}

{{further|Modern yoga}}

{{multiple image

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|header = The aims and practice of traditional and current yoga differ dramatically.{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=112}}

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|image1 = Hindu yogi in Calcutta (unknown date).jpg

|caption1 = Traditional yoga in India: "naked yogis ... their skin smeared with ashes from the cremation pyre"

|image2 = Mr-yoga-half-lord-of-fishes-pose.jpg

|caption2 = Yoga as exercise: the yoga body's "spiritual possibility" is signified by the "lucent skin of the yoga model".{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=174}}

}}

The anthropologist Sarah Strauss contrasts the goal of classical yoga, the isolation of the self or kaivalya, with the modern goals of good health, reduced stress, and physical flexibility.{{sfn|Strauss|2005|p=5}} Sjoman notes that many of the asanas in Iyengar's Light on Yoga can be traced to his teacher, Krishnamacharya, "but not beyond him".{{sfn|Sjoman|1999|p=39}} Singleton states that yoga used as exercise is not "the outcome of a direct and unbroken lineage of haṭha yoga", but it would be "going too far to say that modern postural yoga has no relationship to asana practice within the Indian tradition." The contemporary yoga practice is the result of "radical innovation and experimentation" of its Indian heritage.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=33}} Jain writes that equating yoga as exercise with hatha yoga "does not account for the historical sources": asanas "only became prominent in modern yoga in the early twentieth century as a result of the dialogical exchanges between Indian reformers and nationalists and Americans and Europeans interested in health and fitness".{{cite journal |last=Jain |first=Andrea R. |author-link=Andrea R. Jain |title=The Malleability of Yoga: A Response to Christian and Hindu Opponents of the Popularization of Yoga |journal=Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies |publisher=Butler University, Irwin Library |volume=25 |issue=1 |date=2012 |doi=10.7825/2164-6279.1510|doi-access=free}} In short, Jain writes, "modern yoga systems ... bear little resemblance to the yoga systems that preceded them. This is because [both] ... are specific to their own social contexts."{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=19}} The historian Jared Farmer writes that twelve trends have characterised yoga's progression from the 1890s onwards: from peripheral to central in society; from India to global; from male to "predominantly" female; from spiritual to "mostly" secular; from sectarian to universal; from mendicant to consumerist; from meditational to postural; from being understood intellectually to experientially; from embodying esoteric knowledge to being accessible to all; from being taught orally to hands-on instruction; from presenting poses in text to using photographs; and from being "contorted social pariahs" to "lithe social winners". The trend away from authority is continued in post-lineage yoga, which is practised outside any major school or guru's lineage.{{cite book |last=Lucia |first=Amanda J. |title=White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mgr0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA75 |year=2020 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-37695-3 |pages=75 ff, 136 ff}}

{{Main|Asana|List of asanas}}

Yoga as exercise consists largely but not exclusively of the practice of asanas. The numbers of asanas described (not just named) in some major Haṭha yoga and modern texts are shown in the table; all the Haṭha yoga text dates are approximate.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=29, 170}}

Asanas can be classified in different ways, which may overlap: for example, by the position of the head and feet (standing, sitting, reclining, inverted), by whether balancing is required, or by the effect on the spine (forward bend, backbend, twist), giving a set of asana types agreed by most authors.{{sfn|Mehta|1990|pp=188-191}}{{sfn|Saraswati|1996}}{{cite web |title=Poses |url=http://www.pocketyoga.com/Pose?sch=&cat=1&sub=1&dif=1 |publisher=PocketYoga |date=2018}}{{cite web |title=Categories of Yoga Poses |url=https://www.yogapoint.com/yogasana/yogaposes-categories.htm |publisher=Yoga Point |date=2018}} The yoga guru Dharma Mittra uses his own categories such as "Floor & Supine Poses".{{sfn|Mittra|2003}} Yogapedia and Yoga Journal add "Hip-opening"; the yoga teacher Darren Rhodes, Yogapedia and Yoga Journal also add "Core strength."{{cite web |title=Yoga Poses |url=https://www.yogapedia.com/yoga-poses |publisher=Yogapedia |date=2018}}{{cite web |title=Poses by Type |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/types |work=Yoga Journal |date=2018}}{{sfn|Rhodes|2016}}

{{further|List of yoga schools|Asana#Styles}}

The number of schools and styles of yoga in the Western world has continued to grow rapidly. By 2012, there were at least 19 widespread styles from Ashtanga Yoga to Viniyoga. These emphasise different aspects including aerobic exercise, precision in the asanas, and spirituality in the Haṭha yoga tradition.{{cite web |title=What's Your Style? Explore the Types of Yoga |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/practice/which-yoga-is-right-for-you-2 |work=Yoga Journal |date=13 November 2012}}{{cite news |last1=Beirne |first1=Geraldine |title=Yoga: a beginner's guide to the different styles |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jan/10/yoga-beginners-guide-different-styles |access-date=1 February 2019 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=10 January 2014}}

File:Hatha yoga in Japanese @ Semperviva (4440274580).jpg, tree pose, in Vancouver, Canada]]

These aspects can be illustrated by schools with distinctive styles. For example, Bikram Yoga has an aerobic exercise style with rooms heated to {{convert|105|F|C}} and a fixed pattern of 2 breathing exercises and 24 asanas. Iyengar Yoga emphasises correct alignment in the postures, working slowly, if necessary with props, and ending with relaxation. Sivananda Yoga focuses more on spiritual practice, with 12 basic poses, chanting in Sanskrit, pranayama breathing exercises, meditation, and relaxation in each class, and importance is placed on vegetarian diet.{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|pp=320–336}} Jivamukti Yoga uses a flowing vinyasa style of asanas accompanied by music, chanting, and the reading of scriptures. Kundalini yoga emphasises the awakening of kundalini energy through meditation, pranayama, chanting, and suitable asanas.

Alongside the yoga brands, many teachers, for example in England, offer an unbranded "hatha yoga",{{efn|Not to be confused with medieval Haṭha yoga}}{{sfn|Shearer|2020|p=2}} often mainly to women, creating their own combinations of poses. These may be in flowing sequences (vinyasas), and new variants of poses are often created.{{sfn|Singleton|2010|p=152}}{{cite web |last1=Cook |first1=Jennifer |title=Find Your Match Among the Many Types of Yoga |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/practice/not-all-yoga-is-created-equal |work=Yoga Journal |date=28 August 2007 |quote=If you are browsing through a yoga studio's brochure of classes and the yoga offered is simply described as "hatha," chances are the teacher is offering an eclectic blend of two or more of the styles described above.}} The gender imbalance has sometimes been marked; in Britain in the 1970s, women formed between 70 and 90 percent of most yoga classes, as well as most of the yoga teachers.{{sfn|Newcombe|2007}}

The tradition begun by Krishnamacharya survives at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai; his son T. K. V. Desikachar and his grandson Kausthub Desikachar continued to teach in small groups, coordinating asana movements with the breath, and personalising the teaching according to the needs of individual students.{{cite web |title=Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram |url=https://www.kym.org/ |publisher=Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram |access-date=30 December 2018}}

File:Working in Trikonasana.svg is practised in Iyengar yoga with emphasis on correctness, sometimes as here using props such as yoga bricks.{{sfn|Mehta|1990|pp=22–23}}]]

Yoga sessions vary widely depending on the school and style,{{cite web |last1=Tomlinson |first1=Kirsty |title=Yoga style guide |url=https://www.ekhartyoga.com/articles/practice/yoga-style-guide |publisher=Ekhart Yoga |access-date=1 February 2019 |quote=Hatha .. Vinyasa flow .. Yin Yoga .. Yin Yang Yoga .. Slow flow .. Ashtanga .. Somatics .. Budokon .. Iyengar .. Yamuna .. Yoga Nidra .. Scaravelli-inspired .. Mixed movement .. Kundalini-inspired .. Core Strength Vinyasa .. Restorative Yoga .. AcroYoga .. Anusara ..}} and according to how advanced the class is. As with any exercise class, sessions usually start slowly with gentle warm-up exercises, move on to more vigorous exercises, and slow down again towards the end. A beginners' class can begin with simple poses like Sukhasana, some rounds of Surya Namaskar, and then a combination of standing poses such as Trikonasana, sitting poses like Dandasana, and balancing poses like Navasana; it may end with some reclining and inverted poses like Setu Bandha Sarvangasana and Viparita Karani, a reclining twist, and finally Savasana for relaxation and in some styles also for a guided meditation.{{cite web |last=Rosen |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Rosen (yoga teacher) |title=Sequencing Primer: 9 Ways to Plan a Yoga Class |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/teach/sequences-for-your-teaching |work=Yoga Journal |access-date=1 February 2019 |date=28 August 2007}} A typical session in most styles lasts from an hour to an hour and a half, whereas in Mysore style yoga, the class is scheduled in a three-hour time window during which the students practice on their own at their own speed, following individualised instruction by the teacher.

{{further|List of yoga hybrids}}

The evolution of yoga as exercise is not confined to the creation of new asanas and linking vinyasa sequences. A wide variety of hybrid activities combining yoga with martial arts, aerial yoga combined with acrobatics, yoga with barre work (as in ballet preparation), on horseback,{{cite web |title=Yoga Hybrids |work=Yoga Journal |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/types-of-yoga/yoga-hybrids-types-of-yoga |access-date=1 January 2019}} with dogs,{{sfn|Gowing|2019|pp=78-84}} with goats,{{cite news |last1=Lavelle |first1=Daniel |title=Goat yoga – the greatest of all time or a passing fad? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2018/dec/03/goat-yoga-the-greatest-of-all-time-or-a-passing-fad |work=The Guardian |date=3 December 2018}} with ring-tailed lemurs,{{cite web |title=Lake District hotel launches lemur yoga classes |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-47783459 |publisher=BBC |access-date=2 April 2019 |date=2 April 2019}} with weights, and on paddleboards{{cite web |last=Matthews |first=Jessica |title=What Can I Expect in a Paddleboard Yoga Class? |date=September 2023 |url=http://www.acefitness.org/acefit/healthy-living-article/59/2836/What-Can-I-Expect-in-a-Paddleboard/ |publisher=American Council of Exercise}}{{cite news |title='Flo-yo' a yoga, paddleboard mashup — just don't fall in |url=http://www.today.com/id/44364191/ns/today-today_health/t/flo-yo-yoga-paddleboard-mashup-just-dont-fall/#.UjYxDGRARU4 |access-date=17 September 2013 |newspaper=today.com |archive-date=27 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131227185910/http://www.today.com/id/44364191/ns/today-today_health/t/flo-yo-yoga-paddleboard-mashup-just-dont-fall/#.UjYxDGRARU4 |url-status=dead }} are all being explored.

The energy cost of exercise is measured in units of metabolic equivalent of task (MET). Less than 3 METs counts as light exercise; 3 to 6 METs is moderate; 6 or over is vigorous. American College of Sports Medicine and American Heart Association guidelines count periods of at least 10 minutes of moderate MET level activity towards their recommended daily amounts of exercise.{{cite journal |last1=Larson-Meyer |first1=D. Enette |title=A Systematic Review of the Energy Cost and Metabolic Intensity of Yoga |journal=Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise |volume=48 |issue=8 |year=2016 |pages=1558–1569 |issn=0195-9131 |doi=10.1249/MSS.0000000000000922|pmid=27433961}} The review examined 17 studies, of which 10 measured the energy cost of yoga sessions.{{cite journal |author=Haskell, William L. |title=Physical Activity and Public Health |journal=Circulation |volume=116 |issue=9 |year=2007 |pages=1081–1093 |issn=0009-7322 |doi=10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.185649 |pmid=17671237 |display-authors=etal|doi-access=free}} For healthy adults aged 18 to 65, the guidelines recommend moderate exercise for 30 minutes five days a week,{{Cite journal |last1=Latino |first1=Francesca |last2=Cataldi |first2=Stefania |last3=Fischetti |first3=Francesco |date=2021-02-16 |title=Effects of an 8-Week Yoga-Based Physical Exercise Intervention on Teachers' Burnout |journal=Sustainability |language=en |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=2104 |doi=10.3390/su13042104 |issn=2071-1050|doi-access=free |hdl=11586/358689 |hdl-access=free }} or vigorous aerobic exercise for 20 minutes three days a week.

Treated as a form of exercise, a complete yoga session with asanas and pranayama provides 3.3 ± 1.6 METs, on average a moderate workout. Surya Namaskar ranged from a light 2.9 to a vigorous 7.4 METs;{{efn|Haskell, curious about the wide range of METs in Surya Namaskar, repeated the study (Mody) which gave the highest value; using "transition jumps, and full pushups", he obtained "agreement" with 6.4 METs.}} the average for a session of yoga practice without Surya Namaskar was a light 2.9 ± 0.8 METs.{{efn|Asanas performed individually provide on average 2.2 ± 0.7 METs; pranayama types performed individually provide just 1.3 ± 0.3 METs.}}

Since the mid-20th century, yoga has been used, especially in the Western world, as physical exercise for fitness and suppleness,{{cite web |last=Nanda |first=Meera |title=Not as Old as You Think |work=OPEN Magazine |date=12 February 2011 |url=http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/living/not-as-old-as-you-think}}{{cite journal |last1=Feuerstein |first1=Georg |author-link=Georg Feuerstein |title=The Lost Teachings of Yoga |journal=Common Ground |date=March 2003 |issue=March 2003 |pages=4–27 |url=http://www.commonground.ca:80/iss/0303140/lost_teachings_of_yoga.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101115204210/http://www.commonground.ca/iss/0303140/lost_teachings_of_yoga.shtml |archive-date=15 November 2010 |url-status=dead |quote=For most modern pract[it]ioners, yoga is fitness training. They know nothing about the moral disciplines. They show little or no interest in meditation. The idea of a guru is alien to them. The ideal of liberation is outlandish, even if they are familiar with the concept. |access-date=22 November 2021 }} rather than for what the historian of American yoga, Stefanie Syman, calls any "overtly Hindu"{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=5}} purpose. In 2010, this ambiguity triggered what the New York Times called "a surprisingly fierce debate in the gentle world of yoga".{{cite news |last1=Vitello |first1=Paul |title=Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga's Soul |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/nyregion/28yoga.html |work=The New York Times |date=27 November 2010}} Some saffronising Indian-Americans campaigned to "Take Back Yoga" by informing Americans and other Westerners about the connection between yoga and Hinduism. The campaign was criticised by the New Age author Deepak Chopra, but supported by the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, R. Albert Mohler Jr. Jain{{efn|Andrea Jain is not, despite her surname, a practising Jain.{{sfn|Jain|2015|pp=x, xiv}}}} notes that yoga is not necessarily Hindu, as it can also be Jain or Buddhist; nor is it homogeneous or static, so she is critical of both what she calls the "Christian yogaphobic position" and the "Hindu origins position."{{sfn|Jain|2015|pp=130-157, esp. 131}} Farmer writes that Syman identifies a Protestant streak in yoga as exercise, "with its emphasis on working the body. This effortful yoga is, she says, paradoxically, both 'an indulgence and a penance'."{{cite journal |last=Farmer |first=Jared |author-link=Jared Farmer |title=Americanasana |journal=Reviews in American History |volume=40 |issue=1 |year=2012 |doi=10.1353/rah.2012.0016 |pages=145–158 |s2cid=246283975 }}{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=291}}

File:Yoga in Malaysia (cropped).jpg) is permitted in Malaysia as long as it does not contain religious elements.]]

Authorities differ on whether yoga is purely exercise.{{cite web |last1=Davis |first1=Erik |title=Is yoga a religion? |url=https://aeon.co/essays/are-you-flexible-enough-to-worship-the-sun |work=Aeon |date=3 May 2013}}{{cite web |last1=Ferretti |first1=Andrea |title=Yoga As a Religion? |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/beyond-belief |work=Yoga Journal |access-date=21 February 2019 |date=1 March 2012}} For example, in 2012, New York state decided that yoga was exempt from state sales tax as it did not constitute "true exercise", whereas in 2014 the District of Columbia was clear that yoga premises were subject to the local sales tax on premises "the purpose of which is physical exercise."{{cite web |title=Is yoga really about exercise? |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-29435965 |publisher=BBC Magazine Monitor |access-date=5 January 2019 |date=1 October 2014}} Similar debates have taken place in a Muslim context; for example, restrictions on yoga have been lifted in Saudi Arabia.{{cite news |last1=Chopra |first1=Anuj |title=Saudi Arabia embraces yoga in pivot toward 'moderation' |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/saudi-arabia-embraces-yoga-in-pivot-toward-moderation/ |access-date=9 March 2019 |work=The Times of Israel |date=30 September 2018}} In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur permits yoga classes provided they do not include chanting or meditation. The yoga teacher and author Mira Mehta, asked by Yoga Magazine in 2010 whether she preferred her pupils to commit to a spiritual path before they start yoga, replied "Certainly not. A person's spiritual life is his or her own affair. People come to yoga for all sorts of reasons. High on the list is health and the desire to become de-stressed."{{cite web |title=A Teacher's Tale |work=Yoga Magazine |date=May 2010 |issue=May 2010 |url=http://yogicpath.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/mira_mehta_in_yoga_magazine_may_2010.pdf |access-date=3 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190303104940/http://yogicpath.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/mira_mehta_in_yoga_magazine_may_2010.pdf |archive-date=3 March 2019 |url-status=live}} Kimberley J. Pingatore, studying attitudes among American yoga practitioners, found that they did not view the categories of religious, spiritual, and secular as alternatives.{{cite book |last1=Pingatore |first1=Kimberley J. |title=Bodies Bending Boundaries: Religious, Spiritual, and Secular Identities of Modern Postural Yoga in the Ozarks |date=December 2015 |publisher=Missouri State University (MA Thesis) |url=https://www.academia.edu/20311390}}

However, Haṭha yoga's "ecstatic ... transcendent ... possibly subversive" elements remain in yoga used as exercise.{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=5}} The yoga teacher and author Jessamyn Stanley writes that modern Western society "does not respect the esoteric or spiritual at all", making people skeptical about any alignment of yoga as practised in the West with "chakras or spirituality".{{cite news |last1=Stanley |first1=Jessamyn |last2=The New York Times |title=Question and Answer |url=https://www.nytimes.com/ask/answers/yoga-skeptic-looking-for-ways-to-get-the-health-benefits |access-date=9 February 2021}} Stanley states that it is possible to start a practice without considering such matters, and that styles such as Bikram do not mention them, but that a deepening yoga practice will bring "an overall evolution of the self." Syman suggests that part of the attraction of Bikram and Ashtanga Yoga was that under the sweat, the commitment, the schedule, the physical demands and even the verbal abuse was a hard-won ecstasy, "a deep feeling of vitality, a feeling of pure energy, an unbowed posture, and mental acuity."{{sfn|Syman|2010|p=277}} That context has led to a division of opinion among Christians, some like Alexandra Davis of the Evangelical Alliance asserting that it is acceptable as long as they are aware of modern yoga's origins, others like Paul Gosbee stating that yoga's purpose is to "open up chakras" and release kundalini or "serpent power" which in Gosbee's view is "from Satan", making "Christian yoga ... a contradiction."{{cite web |last1=Davis |first1=Alexandra |title=Should Christians do yoga? |url=https://www.eauk.org/news-and-views/should-christians-do-yoga |publisher=Evangelical Alliance |access-date=29 November 2018 |date=1 January 2016}} Church halls are sometimes used for yoga, and in 2015 a yoga group was banned from a church hall in Bristol by the local parochial church council, stating that yoga represented "alternative spiritualities."{{cite web |title=Bristol yoga group barred from church hall |publisher=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-31311797 |access-date=5 January 2019 |date=9 February 2015}}

In a secular context, the journalists Nell Frizzell and Reni Eddo-Lodge have debated (in The Guardian) whether Western yoga classes represent "cultural appropriation." In Frizzell's view, yoga has become a new entity, a long way from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and while some practitioners are culturally insensitive, others treat it with more respect. Eddo-Lodge agrees that Western yoga is far from Patanjali, but argues that the changes cannot be undone, whether people use it "as a holier-than-thou tool, as a tactic to balance out excessive drug use, or practised similarly to its origins with the spirituality that comes with it."{{cite news |last1=Frizzell |first1=Nell |last2=Eddo-Lodge |first2=Reni |title=Are yoga classes just bad cultural appropriation? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/23/yoga-classes-cultural-appropriation |work=The Guardian |date=23 November 2015}} Jain argues however that charges of appropriation "from 'the East' to 'the West'" fail to take account of the fact that yoga is evolving in a shared multinational process; it is not something that is being stolen from one place by another.{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=xii}}

{{further|Yoga as therapy}}

File:The Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi participating in a programme (Yoga for pregnant women), on the occasion of the 4th International Day of Yoga 2018, in New Delhi on June 21, 2018 (2).JPG, Maneka Gandhi, joining a programme of yoga for pregnant women in 2018. She is sitting in Dandasana, staff pose.]]

Yoga as exercise has been popularized in the Western world by claims about its health benefits.{{cite web |url=http://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/the-health-benefits-of-yoga |title=Yoga Health Benefits: Flexibility, Strength, Posture, and More |publisher=WEBMD |access-date=22 June 2015}} The history of such claims was reviewed by William J. Broad in his 2012 book The Science of Yoga; he states that the claims that yoga was scientific began as Hindu nationalist posturing.{{sfn|Broad|2012|pp=39 and whole book}} Among the early exponents was Kuvalayananda, who attempted to demonstrate scientifically in his purpose-built 1924 laboratory at Kaivalyadhama that Sarvangasana (shoulderstand) specifically rehabilitated the endocrine glands (the organs that secrete hormones). He found no evidence to support such a claim, for this or any other asana.{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|pp=100–109, esp. p 108}}

The impact of yoga as exercise on physical and mental health has been a topic of systematic studies (evaluating primary research), although a 2014 report found that, despite its common practice and possible health benefits, it remained "extremely understudied."{{cite journal |last1=Ding |first1=Ding |last2=Stamatakis |first2=Emmanuel |title=Yoga practice in England 1997–2008: prevalence, temporal trends, and correlates of participation |journal=BMC Research Notes |volume=7 |issue=1|pages=172 |year=2014 |issn=1756-0500 |doi=10.1186/1756-0500-7-172 |pmid=24661723 |pmc=3987846 |doi-access=free }} A systematic review of six studies found that Iyengar yoga is effective at least in the short term for both neck pain and low back pain.{{cite journal |last1=Crow |first1=Edith Meszaros |last2=Jeannot |first2=Emilien |last3=Trewhela |first3=Alison |title=Effectiveness of Iyengar yoga in treating spinal (back and neck) pain: A systematic review |journal=International Journal of Yoga |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=3–14 |year=2015 |doi=10.4103/0973-6131.146046 |pmid=25558128 |pmc=4278133 |doi-access=free }} A review of six studies found benefits for depression, but noted that the studies' methods imposed limitations,{{cite journal |last1=Louie |first1=Lila |title=The Effectiveness of Yoga for Depression: A Critical Literature Review |journal=Issues in Mental Health Nursing |volume=35 |issue=4 |year=2014 |pages=265–276 |doi=10.3109/01612840.2013.874062 |pmid=24702211 |s2cid=23554567 }} while a clinical practice guideline from the American Cancer Society stated that yoga may reduce anxiety and stress in people with cancer.{{cite journal |last1=Greenlee |first1=Heather |last2=DuPont-Reyes |first2=Melissa J. |last3=Balneaves |first3=Lynda G. |last4=Carlson |first4=Linda E. |last5=Cohen |first5=Misha R. |last6=Deng |first6=Gary |last7=Johnson |first7=Jillian A. |last8=Mumber |first8=Matthew |last9=Seely |first9=Dugald |last10=Zick |first10=Suzanna M. |last11=Boyce |first11=Lindsay M. |last12=Tripathy |first12=Debu |title=Clinical practice guidelines on the evidence-based use of integrative therapies during and after breast cancer treatment |journal=CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians|volume=67 |issue=3 |date=2017-04-24 |issn=0007-9235 |doi=10.3322/caac.21397 |pages=194–232 |pmid=28436999 |pmc=5892208}} A 2015 systematic review called for more rigour in clinical trials of the effect of yoga on mood and measures of stress.{{Cite journal |last1=Pascoe |first1=Michaela C. |last2=Bauer |first2=Isabelle E. |date=1 September 2015 |title=A systematic review of randomised control trials on the effects of yoga on stress measures and mood |journal=Journal of Psychiatric Research |volume=68 |pages=270–282 |doi=10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.07.013 |pmid=26228429}}

The practice of asanas has been claimed to improve flexibility, strength, and balance; to alleviate stress and anxiety, and to reduce the symptoms of lower back pain.{{cite journal |last1=Hayes |first1=M. |author2=Chase, S. |title=Prescribing Yoga |journal=Primary Care |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=31–47 |date=March 2010 |pmid=20188996 |doi=10.1016/j.pop.2009.09.009}} A review of five studies noted that three psychological (positive affect, mindfulness, self-compassion) and four biological mechanisms (posterior hypothalamus, interleukin-6, C-reactive protein and cortisol) that might act on stress had been examined empirically, whereas many other potential mechanisms remained to be studied; four of the mechanisms (positive affect, self-compassion, inhibition of the posterior hypothalamus and salivary cortisol) were found to mediate the potential stress-lowering effects of yoga.{{cite journal |last1=Riley |first1=Kristen E. |last2=Park |first2=Crystal L. |title=How does yoga reduce stress? A systematic review of mechanisms of change and guide to future inquiry |journal=Health Psychology Review |volume=9 |issue=3 |year=2015 |pages=379–396 |doi=10.1080/17437199.2014.981778 |pmid=25559560 |s2cid=35963343 }} A 2017 review found moderate-quality evidence that yoga reduces back pain.{{cite journal |last1=Chou |first1=Roger |last2=Deyo |first2=Richard |last3=Friedly |first3=Janna |last4=Skelly |first4=Andrea |last5=Hashimoto |first5=Robin |last6=Weimer |first6=Melissa |last7=Fu |first7=Rochelle |last8=Dana |first8=Tracy |last9=Kraegel |first9=Paul |last10=Griffin |first10=Jessica |last11=Grusing |first11=Sara |last12=Brodt |first12=Erika D. |display-authors=3 |title=Nonpharmacologic therapies for low back pain: A systematic Review for an American College of Physicians Clinical Practice Guideline |journal=Annals of Internal Medicine |volume=166 |issue=7 |pages=493–505 |date=2017-02-14 |issn=0003-4819 |doi=10.7326/m16-2459 |pmid=28192793|doi-access=free}} For people with cancer, yoga may help relieve fatigue, improve psychological outcomes, and support sleep quality and life attitudes, although results vary from reviews published in 2017.{{cite journal |last1=Cramer |first1=Holger |last2=Lauche |first2=Romy |last3=Klose |first3=Petra |last4=Lange |first4=Silke |last5=Langhorst |first5=Jost |last6=Dobos |first6=Gustav J. |display-authors=3 |title=Yoga for improving health-related quality of life, mental health and cancer-related symptoms in women diagnosed with breast cancer |journal=Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews |volume=1 |date=2017-01-03 |issue=1 |issn=1465-1858 |doi=10.1002/14651858.cd010802.pub2 |page=CD010802|pmid=28045199|pmc=6465041}}{{cite journal |last1=Danhauer |first1=Suzanne C. |last2=Addington |first2=Elizabeth L. |last3=Sohl |first3=Stephanie J. |last4=Chaoul |first4=Alejandro |last5=Cohen |first5=Lorenzo |display-authors=3 |title=Review of yoga therapy during cancer treatment |journal=Supportive Care in Cancer |volume=25 |issue=4 |date=2017-01-07 |issn=0941-4355 |doi=10.1007/s00520-016-3556-9 |pages=1357–1372 |pmid=28064385 |pmc=5777241}}

A 2015 systematic review noted that yoga may be effective in alleviating symptoms of prenatal depression.{{cite journal |last1=Gong |first1=H. |author2=Ni, C. |author3=Shen, X. |author4=Wu, T. |author5=Jiang, C. |title=Yoga for prenatal depression: a systematic review and meta-analysis |journal=BMC Psychiatry |volume=15 |pages=14 |date=February 2015 |pmid=25652267 |pmc=4323231 |doi=10.1186/s12888-015-0393-1 |doi-access=free }} There is evidence that practice of asanas improves birth outcomes, physical health, anxiety and worry in older adults,{{Cite journal |last1=Danhauer |first1=Suzanne C. |last2=Miller |first2=Michael E. |last3=Divers |first3=Jasmin |last4=Anderson |first4=Andrea |last5=Hargis |first5=Gena |last6=Brenes |first6=Gretchen A. |display-authors=3 |date=2022 |title=Long-Term Effects of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Yoga for Worried Older Adults |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1064748122000343 |journal=The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry |language=en |volume=30 |issue=9 |pages=979–990 |doi=10.1016/j.jagp.2022.02.002|pmid=35260292 |s2cid=246643041 |url-access=subscription }} quality of life measures in the elderly, whilst also reducing hypertension.{{cite journal |last=Silverberg |first=D. S. |title=Non-pharmacological treatment of hypertension |journal=Journal of Hypertension Supplement |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=S21–6 |date=September 1990 |pmid=2258779}}{{cite journal |author1=Labarthe, D. |author2=Ayala, C. |title=Nondrug interventions in hypertension prevention and control |journal=Cardiology Clinics |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=249–263 |date=May 2002 |pmid=12119799 |doi=10.1016/s0733-8651(01)00003-0}}

File:A yoga namaste Hindu culture religion rites rituals sights.jpg

From its origins in the 1920s, yoga used as exercise has had a "spiritual" aspect which is not necessarily neo-Hindu; its assimilation with Harmonial Gymnastics is an example.{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|pp=248-249}}{{sfn|Singleton|2010|pp=143-162}} Jain calls yoga as exercise "a sacred fitness regimen set apart from day-to-day life."{{sfn|Jain|2015|p=130}} The yoga therapist Ann Swanson writes that "scientific principles and evidence have demystified [yoga]" without making its practice less enjoyable.{{sfn|Swanson|2019|p=7}} Yoga practice sessions have, notes yoga scholar Elizabeth De Michelis, a highly specific three-part structure that matches Arnold van Gennep's 1908 definition of the basic structure of a ritual:{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=252}}

   1. a separation phase (detaching from the world outside);{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=252}}{{sfn|Van Gennep|1965}}

   2. a transition or liminal state; and{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=252}}{{sfn|Van Gennep|1965}}

   3. an incorporation or postliminal state.{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=252}}{{sfn|Van Gennep|1965}}

File:Savasana artistic.jpg, forming Van Gennep's postliminal state.{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=252}}{{sfn|Van Gennep|1965}}]]

For the separation phase, the yoga session begins by going into a neutral and if possible a secluded practice hall; worries, responsibilities, ego and shoes are all left outside;{{cite journal |last1=Dalton |first1=T. |title=Yoga in the City |journal=Ascent |date=2001 |volume=11 |issue=Fall |page=37}}{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|pp=252-255}} and the yoga teacher is treated with deference. The actual yoga practice forms the transition state, combining practical instructions with theory, made more or less explicit. The practitioner learns "to feel and to perceive in novel ways, most of all inwardly";{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|pp=252-255}} to "become silent and receptive" to help to get away from the "ego-dominated rationality of modern Western life."{{cite book |last1=Fuller |first1=R. C. |title=Alternative Medicine and American Religious Life |url=https://archive.org/details/alternativemedic00full |url-access=registration |date=1989 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/alternativemedic00full/page/123 123]|isbn=978-0-19-505775-1 }}{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=255}} The final relaxation forms the incorporation phase; the practitioner relaxes in Savasana, just as dictated by the Hatha Yoga Pradipika 1.32. The posture offers "an exercise in sense withdrawal and mental quietening, and thus ... a first step towards meditative practice,"{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|pp=257-258}} a cleansing and healing process, and even a symbolic death and moment of self-renewal.{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|pp=257-258}} Iyengar writes that savasana puts the practitioner in "that precise state [where] the body, the breath, the mind and the brain move toward the real self (Atma)" so as to merge into the Infinite, thus explaining the modern yoga healing ritual in terms of the Hindu Vishishtadvaita: an explanation that, De Michelis notes, practitioners are free to follow if they wish.{{sfn|Iyengar|1983|pp=232-233, 249-251}}{{sfn|De Michelis|2004|p=258}}

The yoga scholar Elliott Goldberg notes that some practitioners of yoga as exercise "inhabit their body as a means of accessing the spiritual... they use their asana practice as a vehicle for transcendence."{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|p=138}} He cites yoga teacher Vanda Scaravelli's 1991 Awakening the Spine as an instance of such transcendence: "We learn to elongate and extend, rather than to pull and push... [and so] an unexpected opening follows, an opening from within us, giving life to the spine, as though the body had to reverse and awaken into another dimension."{{sfn|Goldberg|2016|p=138}}{{sfn|Scaravelli|1991|page=10}}

In mindful yoga, the practice of asanas is combined with pranayama and meditation, using the breath and sometimes Buddhist Vipassana meditation techniques to bring the attention to the body and the emotions, thus quietening the mind.{{sfn|Cushman|2014|pp=xi and whole book}}

The idea of competitive yoga has been called an oxymoron by some people in the yoga community, such as the yoga teacher Maja Sidebaeck, but the fiercely contested Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup, founded by Bikram Choudhury in 2003,{{cite news |last1=Beck |first1=Sara |title=Yoga Is Not Just Posing as Sport at World Event |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/sports/world-yoga-tournament-displays-real-athleticism.html |work=The New York Times |date=11 June 2012}} is now held annually in Los Angeles.{{cite news |last1=Whitworth |first1=Melissa |title=Are you cool enough for competitive yoga? |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/7803435/Are-you-cool-enough-for-competitive-yoga.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/7803435/Are-you-cool-enough-for-competitive-yoga.html |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=7 June 2010 |quote=Hang on. Yoga competition? Surely competition is the very antithesis to the philosophy of the practice, which is about spiritual and physical wellbeing attained through a personal journey? Can you 'win’ at yoga when it’s supposed to be spiritual, not competitive? Apparently, yes.}}{{cbignore}}

File:Christmas Present Leggings.png) have become big business.]]

By the 21st century, yoga as exercise had become a flourishing business, professionally marketed. A 2016 Ipsos study reported that 36.7 million Americans practise yoga, making the business of classes, clothing and equipment worth $16 billion in America, compared to $10 billion in 2012, and $80 billion worldwide. 72 percent of practitioners were women.{{cite web |title=2016 Yoga in America Study |url=https://www.yogaalliance.org/2016yogainamericastudy |publisher=Ipsos Public Affairs |pages=1–87 |date=January 2016}}{{cite news |last1=Delaney |first1=Brigid |title=The yoga industry is booming – but does it make you a better person? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/17/yoga-better-person-lifestyle-exercise |work=The Guardian |date=17 September 2017}}{{cite web |last1=Macy |first1=Dayna |title=2016 Yoga in America Study Conducted by Yoga Journal and Yoga Alliance Reveals Growth and Benefits of the Practice |url=http://media.yogajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016YIAS-Release-Final.pdf |work=Yoga Journal |date=13 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160412200121/http://media.yogajournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016YIAS-Release-Final.pdf |archive-date=12 April 2016 |url-status=dead }} By 2010, Yoga Journal, founded in 1975, had some 350,000 subscribers and over 1,300,000 readers.{{cite web |url=http://www.yogajournal.com/global/34 |title=The Yoga Journal Story |work=Yoga Journal |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100124085914/http://www.yogajournal.com/global/34 |archive-date=24 January 2010}}

{{further|Yoga pants|Yoga mat|Yoga brick}}

Fashion has entered the world of yoga, with brands such as Lorna Jane and Lululemon offering their own ranges of women's yoga clothing. Sales of goods such as yoga mats are increasing rapidly; sales are projected to rise to $14 billion by 2020 in North America, where the key vendors in 2016 were Barefoot Yoga, Gaiam, Jade Yoga, and Manduka, according to Technavio.{{cite web |title=Yoga and Exercise Mats Market in North America 2016–2020 |url=https://www.technavio.com/report/north-america-general-retail-goods-and-services-yoga-and-exercise-mats-market |publisher=Technavio |access-date=31 December 2018 |ref=SKU: IRTNTR8131 |date=January 2016}} Sales of athleisure clothing such as yoga pants were worth $35 billion in 2014, forming 17% of American clothing sales.{{cite news |last1=DiBlasio |first1=Natalie |title=Retailers rush to tap Millennial 'athleisure' market |url=https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2014/12/23/athleisure-activewear-shopping-holiday/19616825/ |work=USA Today |date=30 December 2014}} A wide variety of instructional videos are available, some free.{{cite web |title=Yoga Videos |url=https://www.yogajournal.com/video |work=Yoga Journal |access-date=31 December 2018}} Yoga has reached high fashion, too: in 2011, the fashion house Gucci, noting the "halo of chic"{{sfn|Veenhof|2011|p=397}} around yoga-practising celebrities such as Madonna and Sting, produced a yoga mat costing $850 and a matching carry case in leather for $350.{{sfn|Veenhof|2011|p=397}}

In India, participants typically wear loose-fitting clothes for yoga classes, while serious practitioners in yoga ashrams practice an arduous combination of exercise, meditation, selfless service, vegetarian diet and celibacy, making yoga a way of life.{{cite web |last1=Timmons |first1=Heather |title=The Great Yoga Divide |url=https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/the-great-yoga-divide/ |work=The New York Times |access-date=18 May 2019 |date=17 January 2012}}

{{further|Yoga tourism}}

Yoga holidays (vacations) are offered in "idyllic"{{cite news |last1=Dunford |first1=Jane |title=Perfect positions: 20 best yoga holidays worldwide |url=https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/oct/07/perfect-positions-20-best-yoga-holiday-destinations |work=The Observer |publisher=The Guardian |date=7 October 2018}} places around the world, including in Croatia, England, France, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, India, Italy, Montenegro, Morocco, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Turkey.{{cite news |last1=Hampson |first1=Laura |title=The best winter wellness retreats in the UK for a new year getaway |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/health/best-winter-wellness-retreats-uk-2019-a4005696.html |date=27 December 2018}}{{cite news |last1=Sylger Jones |first1=Caroline |title=10 of the world's most scenic yoga retreats |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activity-and-adventure/worlds-best-yoga-holidays/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/activity-and-adventure/worlds-best-yoga-holidays/ |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=21 June 2018}}{{cbignore}} In 2018, prices were up to £1,295 (about $1,500) for 6 days.

Teacher training, as of 2017, could cost between $2,000 and $5,000. It can take up to 3 years to obtain a teaching certificate.{{cite news |last1=Lisinski |first1=Anna |title=The truth behind becoming a yoga teacher |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/11691964/The-truth-behind-becoming-a-yoga-teacher.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/11691964/The-truth-behind-becoming-a-yoga-teacher.html |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=The Daily Telegraph |date=22 June 2015}}{{cbignore}} Yoga training courses, as of 2017, were still unregulated in the UK;{{cite web |title=Yoga regulation - what you need to know |url=http://www.keepyogafree.co.uk/yoga-regualtion.html |website=Keep Yoga Free |access-date=6 April 2020 |date=2017}} the British Wheel of Yoga has been appointed the activity's official governing body by Sport England,{{cite web |title=Sports that we recognise |url=https://www.sportengland.org/our-work/national-governing-bodies/sports-that-we-recognise/ |publisher=Sport England |access-date=31 December 2018}} but it lacks power to compel training organisations, and many people are taking short unaccredited courses rather than any of the nine courses so far accredited.

File:Bikram Yoga - with Bikram Choudhury - Flickr - tiarescott.jpg teaching a Bikram Yoga class]]

{{further|Copyright claims on Bikram Yoga}}

Bikram Yoga has become a global brand,{{cite news |last1=Godwin |first1=Richard |title='He said he could do what he wanted': the scandal that rocked Bikram yoga |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/feb/18/bikram-hot-yoga-scandal-choudhury-what-he-wanted |work=The Guardian |date=18 February 2017}} and its founder, Bikram Choudhury, spent some ten years from 2002 attempting to establish copyright on the sequence of 26 postures used in Bikram Yoga, with some initial success. However, in 2012, the American federal court ruled that Bikram Yoga could not be copyrighted.{{cite web |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/news/hold-that-pose-federal-judge-rules-that-bikram-yoga-cannot-be-copyrighted-6718126 |title=Hold that Pose: Federal Judge Rules that Bikram Yoga Cannot be Copyrighted |first=Rebecca |last=Moss |date=19 December 2012 |access-date=29 December 2018 |archive-date=22 June 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160622011327/http://www.villagevoice.com/news/hold-that-pose-federal-judge-rules-that-bikram-yoga-cannot-be-copyrighted-6718126 |url-status=dead }} In 2015, after further legal action, the American court of appeals ruled that the yoga sequence and breathing exercises were not eligible for copyright protection.{{cite web |last1=Sullivan |first1=Shawn |title=Yoga Sequence not Protected by Copyright, says 9th Circuit |url=http://sullivanlaw.net/yoga-sequence-not-protected-copyright-says-9th-circuit/ |publisher=Sullivan Law |access-date=29 December 2018 |date=13 October 2015}}

Yoga has found its way into types of literature as varied as autobiography, chick lit, and documentary. The actress Mariel Hemingway's 2002 autobiography Finding My Balance: A Memoir with Yoga describes how she used yoga to recover balance in her life after a dysfunctional upbringing: among other things, her grandfather, the novelist Ernest Hemingway, killed himself shortly before she was born. Each chapter is titled after an asana, the first being "Mountain Pose, or Tadasana", the posture of standing in balance.{{sfn|Hemingway|2004|pp=Chapter 1, and whole book}}{{cite news |last1=Mahadevan-Dasgupta |first1=Uma |title=Striking a fine balance with peace |url=https://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/striking-a-fine-balance-with-peace-103081101084_1.html |access-date=22 February 2019 |work=Business Standard |date=11 August 2003}}

The teacher of yoga and mindful meditation Anne Cushman's 2009 novel Enlightenment for Idiots tells the story of a woman nearing the age of thirty whose life as a nanny and yogini hopeful is not working out as expected, and is sure that a visit to the ashrams of India will sort out her life. Instead, she finds that nothing in India is quite what it seems on the surface. The Yoga Journal review notes that underneath the chick lit "fun romp", the book is a serious "call to enlightenment and an introduction to yoga philosophy."{{sfn|Cushman|2009}}{{cite magazine |last=Dowdle |first=Hillary |title=Enlightened Fiction |magazine=Yoga Journal |date=March 2008 |issue=March 2008 |pages=117–119}}

Kate Churchill's 2009 film Enlighten Up! follows an unemployed journalist for six months as, on the filmmaker's invitation, he travels the globe – New York, Boulder, California, Hawaii, India – to practise under yoga masters including Jois, Norman Allen,{{efn|Allen was the first American to be taught by Jois.{{cite web |title=Norman Allen – Big Island, Hawaii 2001 {{!}} Interviews |url=http://aysnyc.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=161 |publisher=Ashtanga Yoga Shala NYC |access-date=22 February 2019 |date=2001}}}} and Iyengar. The critic Roger Ebert found it interesting and peaceful, if "not terribly eventful, but I suppose we wouldn't want a yoga thriller". He commented: "I'm glad I saw it. I enjoyed all the people I met during Nick's six-month quest. Most seemed cheerful and outgoing, and exuded good health. They smiled a lot. They weren't creepy true believers obsessed with converting everyone."{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |title=Reviews {{!}} Enlighten Up! |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/enlighten-up-2009 |publisher=Roger Ebert |access-date=22 February 2019 |date=10 June 2009}}{{cite web |title=Kate Churchill & Nick Rosen Q&A |url=http://www.newvideo.com/filmmakers/kate-churchill-nick-rosen-qa/ |publisher=Cinedigm |access-date=22 February 2019}}

Yoga has become a subject of academic inquiry; many of the researchers are "scholar practitioners" who do yoga themselves.{{sfn|Newcombe|2009}} Medknow (part of Wolters Kluwer), with Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana university, publishes the peer-reviewed open access medical journal International Journal of Yoga.{{cite web |title=About Us |url=http://www.ijoy.org.in/aboutus.asp |publisher=International Journal of Yoga |access-date=22 May 2019}}{{cite web |title=International Journal of Yoga |url=https://www.researchgate.net/journal/0973-6131_International_Journal_of_Yoga |access-date=20 May 2019}} An increasing number of papers are being published on the possible medical benefits of yoga, such as on stress and low back pain.{{cite web |title=The science of yoga — what research reveals |url=https://www.elsevier.com/connect/the-science-of-yoga-what-new-research-reveals |publisher=Elsevier |access-date=22 May 2019}} The School of Oriental and African Studies in London has created a Centre of Yoga Studies; it hosted the five-year Hatha Yoga Project which traced the history of physical yoga, and it teaches a master's degree in yoga and meditation.{{cite web |title=Centre of Yoga Studies |url=https://www.soas.ac.uk/yoga-studies/ |publisher=SOAS |access-date=22 May 2019}}

Academics have given yoga as exercise a variety of names, including "modern postural yoga" reflecting its emphasis on asanas (postures){{sfn|De Michelis|2004|pp=1-2}} and "transnational anglophone yoga" denoting its growth in the English-speaking world, especially America.{{sfn|Singleton|2013|p=38}}

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist|25em}}

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• {{cite journal |last=Newcombe |first=Suzanne |author-mask={{long dash}} |year=2009 |title=The Development of Modern Yoga: A Survey of the Field |journal=Religion Compass |volume=3 |issue=6 |pages=986–1002 |doi=10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00171.x}}
• {{cite book |last=Newcombe |first=Suzanne |author-mask={{long dash}} |year=2014 |chapter=The institutionalization of the yoga tradition: gurus B. K. S. Iyengar and Yogini Sunita in Britain |editor1=Singleton, Mark |editor2=Goldberg, Ellen |title=Gurus of Modern Yoga |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-993872-8 |url=http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62024/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_Newcombe,%20S_Institutionalization%20of%20yoga_Newcombe_Institutionalization%20of%20yoga_2015.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180719024608/http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62024/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_Newcombe,%20S_Institutionalization%20of%20yoga_Newcombe_Institutionalization%20of%20yoga_2015.pdf |archive-date=19 July 2018 |url-status=live }}
• {{cite book |last=Newcombe |first=Suzanne |author-mask={{long dash}} |year=2017 |chapter=The Revival of Yoga in Contemporary India |editor-last=Barton |editor-first=John |title=Oxford Research Encyclopedias: Religion |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.253 |isbn=978-0-19-934037-8 |chapter-url=http://oro.open.ac.uk/48147/1/April_Yoga_Revival_Newcombe.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190905130247/http://oro.open.ac.uk/48147/1/April_Yoga_Revival_Newcombe.pdf |archive-date=5 September 2019 |url-status=live }}
• {{cite book |last1=Pratinidhi |first1=Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant |author1-link=Bhawanrao Shrinivasrao Pant Pratinidhi |editor-last=Morgan |editor-first=Louise |title=The Ten-Point Way to Health = Surya Namaskars |date=1938 |orig-year=1929 |location=London |publisher=J. M. Dent |oclc=156801198}}
• {{cite book |last=Rhodes |first=Darren |title=Yoga Resource Practice Manual |publisher=Tirtha Studios |year=2016 |isbn=978-0-9836883-9-6}}
• {{cite book |last=Saraswati |first=Swami Satyananda |author-link=Swami Satyananda Saraswati |title=Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha |url=http://www.znakovi-vremena.net/en/Swami-Satyananda-Saraswati---Asana-Pranayama-Mudra-Bandha.pdf |publisher=Yoga Publications Trust |year=1996 |isbn=978-81-86336-14-4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140822002432/http://www.znakovi-vremena.net/en/Swami-Satyananda-Saraswati---Asana-Pranayama-Mudra-Bandha.pdf |archive-date=22 August 2014 |url-status=live }}
• {{cite book |last=Scaravelli |first=Vanda |author-link=Vanda Scaravelli |title=Awakening the Spine |publisher=Harper |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-242853-0 |oclc=907678659}}
• {{cite book |last=Schneider |first=Carrie |title=American Yoga: The Paths and Practices of America's Greatest Yoga Masters |year=2003 |publisher=Barnes & Noble |isbn=0-7607-4558-7 |pages=60–65}}
• {{cite book |last=Shearer |first=Alistair |title=The Story of Yoga: from Ancient India to the Modern West |title-link=The Story of Yoga |publisher=C. Hurst & Co. |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-78738-192-6 |oclc=1089012347}}
• {{cite book |last=Singleton |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Singleton (yoga scholar) |title=Yoga Body: the origins of modern posture practice |title-link=Yoga Body |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-19-539534-1 |oclc=318191988}}
• {{cite book |last=Singleton |first=Mark |author-link=Mark Singleton (yoga scholar) |editor=Beatrix Hauser |chapter=Transnational Exchange and the Genesis of Modern Postural Yoga |title=Yoga Traveling: Bodily Practice in Transcultural Perspective |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RcNDAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 |year=2013 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-3-319-00315-3 |author-mask={{long dash}} }}
• {{cite book |last1=Sjoman |first1=Norman E. |author-link=Norman Sjoman |title=The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace |title-link=The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace |publisher=Abhinav Publications |year=1999 |edition=2nd |orig-year=1996 |isbn=81-7017-389-2 }}
• {{cite book |last=Srinivasa |first=Narinder |year=2002 |editor1-last=Gharote |editor1-first=M. L. |editor2-last=Devnath |editor2-first=Parimal |editor3-last=Jha |editor3-first=Vijay Kant |edition=1st |title=Haṭharatnāvalī (a treatise on Haṭhayoga) of Śrīnivāsayogī |publisher=The Lonavla Yoga Institute |url=https://archive.org/details/HathaRatnavaliSrinivasayogiATreatiseOnHathayogaEd.GharoteM.L.DevnathParimalDevNa/page/n191 |isbn=81-901176-96 }}
• {{cite book |last=Strauss |first=Sarah |title=Positioning Yoga: balancing acts across cultures |publisher=Berg |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-85973-739-2 |oclc=290552174 |title-link=Positioning Yoga: balancing acts across cultures}}
• {{cite book |last=Swanson |first=Ann |title=Science of yoga: understand the anatomy and physiology to perfect your practice |publisher=DK |location=New York, New York |year=2019 |isbn=978-1-4654-7935-8 |oclc=1030608283}}
• {{cite book |last=Syman |first=Stefanie |title=The Subtle Body: the Story of Yoga in America |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-374-53284-0 |oclc=456171421 |title-link=The Subtle Body}}
• {{cite book |last=Tiruka |author-link=Malladihalli Raghavendra |title=Suryanamaskara |date=1977 |publisher=Sarvodaya Mudranalaya, Anathasevashrama Trust |location=Malladhihalli |language=kn |page=v |oclc=20519100}}
• {{cite book |last1=Van Gennep |first1=Arnold |author-link=Arnold Van Gennep |title=The Rites of Passage |date=1965 |orig-year=1908 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |oclc=752944237}}
• {{cite book |last=Veenhof |first=Douglas |title=White Lama: The Life of Tantric Yogi Theos Bernard, Tibet's Emissary to the New World |publisher=Harmony Books |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-385-51432-3}}
• {{cite book |last1=Vishnudevananda |first1=Swami |author-link=Vishnudevananda Saraswati |title=The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga |year=1988 |orig-year=1960 |publisher=Three Rivers Press |isbn=0-517-88431-3 |title-link=The Complete Illustrated Book of Yoga}}
• {{cite book |last1=Yogendra |title=Yoga Asanas Simplified |publisher=The Yoga Institute |year=1928 |oclc=58817499 |author1-link=Yogendra}}

{{refend}}

{{Commons category}}

• [http://www.modernyogaresearch.org/ Modern Yoga Research] website, managed by the scholars Elizabeth De Michelis, Suzanne Newcombe, and Mark Singleton
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/40brQdJ61GQZkwL3CPl3RVP/whats-behind-the-five-popular-yoga-poses-loved-by-the-world What's behind the five popular yoga poses loved by the world?] – a BBC Seriously... program and web page by Mukti Jain Campion

{{Yoga as exercise}}

{{Hatha yoga}}

{{Asanas}}

{{Physical culture}}

{{Physical exercise}}

{{Yoga}}

{{Yoga scholars}}

{{New Age Movement}}

Yoga as exercise

Category:Yoga

Category:Physical exercise