Power Yoga is any of several forms of energetic vinyasa-style yoga as exercise developed in America in the 1990s. These include forms derived from Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, namely those of Beryl Bender Birch, Bryan Kest, and Larry Schultz, and forms derived from Bikram Yoga, such as that of Baron Baptiste.
Power Yoga began in the 1990s with "nearly simultaneous invention" by two students of K. Pattabhi Jois, and similar forms led by other yoga teachers including Larry Schultz's Rocket Yoga. [1]
Beryl Bender Birch created what Yoga Journal calls "the original Power Yoga" [2] in 1995. [3] [4]
Bryan Kest, who studied Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga under K. Pattabhi Jois, and Baron Baptiste, a Bikram enthusiast, separately put their own spins on the style, and branded it. Neither Baron Baptiste's Power Yoga nor Bryan Kest's Power Yoga are synonymous with Ashtanga Yoga. [5] In 1995, Jois wrote a letter to Yoga Journal expressing his disappointment at the association between his Ashtanga Yoga, and the newly coined style "power yoga", referring to it as "ignorant bodybuilding". [6]
K. Pattabhi Jois was an Indian yoga guru who developed and popularized the flowing style of yoga as exercise known as Ashtanga vinyasa yoga. In 1948, Jois established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India. Pattabhi Jois is one of a short list of Indians instrumental in establishing modern yoga as exercise in the 20th century, along with B. K. S. Iyengar, another pupil of Krishnamacharya in Mysore. Jois sexually abused some of his yoga students by touching inappropriately during adjustments. Sharath Jois has publicly apologised for his grandfather's "improper adjustments".
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is a style of yoga as exercise popularised by K. Pattabhi Jois during the twentieth century, often promoted as a dynamic form of classical Indian (hatha) yoga. Jois claimed to have learnt the system from his teacher Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. The style is energetic, synchronising breath with movements. The individual poses (asanas) are linked by flowing movements (vinyasas).
Sun Salutation, also called Surya Namaskar(a) or Salute to the Sun (Sanskrit: सूर्यनमस्कार, romanized: Sūryanamaskāra), is a practice in yoga as exercise incorporating a flow sequence of some twelve linked asanas. The asana sequence was first recorded as yoga in the early 20th century, though similar exercises were in use in India before that, for example among wrestlers. The basic sequence involves moving from a standing position into Downward and Upward Dog poses and then back to the standing position, but many variations are possible. The set of 12 asanas is dedicated to the Hindu solar deity, Surya. In some Indian traditions, the positions are each associated with a different mantra.
Astanga or Ashtanga (aṣṭāṅga) is a Sanskrit compound translating to "having eight limbs or components". It may refer to:
The Mysore style of asana practice is the way of teaching yoga as exercise within the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga tradition as taught by K. Pattabhi Jois in the southern Indian city of Mysore; its fame has made that city a yoga hub with a substantial yoga tourism business.
Tadasana, Mountain pose or Samasthiti is a standing asana in modern yoga as exercise; it is not described in medieval hatha yoga texts. It is the basis for several other standing asanas.
Guru is a British 2006 short documentary film about the guru of yoga as exercise K. Pattabhi Jois, directed by the BBC film producer Robert Wilkins. The film shows Jois and his grandson Sharath Rangaswamy teaching in the yogashala at the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India. It combined footage of beginner and advanced students practising the various Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga series of asanas, from Primary to Advanced, with interviews with Jois and senior staff at the Institute, and street scenes in Mysore. The film also shows Jois's children Saraswati and Manju talk about their father. Wilkins took up Ashtanga Yoga two years before making the film. Wilkins spent several months in Mysore studying for the film.
Ustrasana, Ushtrasana, or Camel Pose is a kneeling back-bending asana in modern yoga as exercise.
The Yoga Korunta or Yoga Kuruntha is a purported 5,000 year old text on yoga, said to have been written in Sanskrit by an otherwise unknown author, Vamana Rishi, allegedly discovered by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya in the National Archives of India in the early 20th century, and supposedly lost when Krishnamacharya's only copy was eaten by ants.
A vinyasa is a smooth transition between asanas in flowing styles of modern yoga as exercise such as Vinyasa Krama Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, especially when movement is paired with the breath.
Chaturanga Dandasana or Four-Limbed Staff pose, also known as Low Plank, is an asana in modern yoga as exercise and in some forms of Surya Namaskar, in which a straight body parallel to the ground is supported by the toes and palms, with elbows at a right angle along the body. The variation Kumbhakasana, Phalakasana, or High Plank has the arms straight.
Larry Schultz was an American yoga teacher who was a long-time student of the founder of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, K. Pattabhi Jois. Schultz is primarily recognized as the creator of Rocket Yoga, a style derived from Jois's, which is known to be one of the original forms of Vinyasa Flow or Power Yoga.
Tim Miller is an American teacher and author on the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga style of yoga as exercise.
Beryl Bender Birch is a teacher of yoga as exercise and a creator and guru of Power Yoga.
Bryan Kest is an American yoga teacher. Recognized as the creator of one form of Power Yoga, he is the founder of Santa Monica Power Yoga, based in Santa Monica, California. Kest has led yoga classes, retreats and workshops worldwide. He is credited with pioneering the practice of donation-based yoga in the United States.
R. Sharath Jois is a teacher, practitioner and lineage holder (paramaguru) of Ashtanga Yoga, in the tradition of his grandfather K. Pattabhi Jois. He is the director of Sharath Yoga Center in Mysore, India.
Prasarita Padottanasana or Wide Stance Forward Bend is a standing forward bend asana in modern yoga as exercise.
The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.
Postural yoga began in India as a variant of traditional yoga, which was a mainly meditational practice; it has spread across the world and returned to the Indian subcontinent in different forms. The ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali mention yoga postures, asanas, only briefly, as meditation seats. Medieval Haṭha yoga made use of a small number of asanas alongside other techniques such as pranayama, shatkarmas, and mudras, but it was despised and almost extinct by the start of the 20th century. At that time, the revival of postural yoga was at first driven by Indian nationalism. Advocates such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda made yoga acceptable in the 1920s, treating it as a medical subject. From the 1930s, the "father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya developed a vigorous postural yoga, influenced by gymnastics, with transitions (vinyasas) that allowed one pose to flow into the next.
The original Power Yoga was developed and founded by Beryl Bender Birch, but is now a term used to describe many vigorous vinyasa styles.
There are several separate institutes which each teach their own forms of 'Power Yoga'.