The Third Limb

Dear Friend,

Recently, I've been reflecting on the state of mainstream yoga these days, which appears to be dominated by certain trends. I have some mixed feelings about this topic and how yoga became what is today. I would like to share some of my observations and thoughts with you.

What troubles me the most about the current yoga trends is that the obsession with body aesthetics and form has reached new levels. Whenever I regrettably open social media, I see an endless stream of people with "perfect" yoga bodies, wearing fancy yoga clothes, displaying themselves as they move through extreme positions that resemble formal yoga postures in a performative way, curating an appearance of serenity, but clearly seeking validation, admiration, status, and recognition, appearing to showcase their skills rather than genuinely practice. This happens to some degree in many of the generic studio classes as well. On the other hand, there is a growing trend of people reacting against these images of perfection, often with messages of "body positivity", portraying so-called "imperfect" bodies as something that needs to be cherished and celebrated.

These are simply two sides of the same coin, reinforcing either attachment to or aversion toward body appearance or image. Attachment and aversion are two expressions of similar mental imprints, both of which, according to the teachings of yoga, ultimately generate suffering (dukkha), and are recommended to be observed carefully and diminished through proper practice. It is not surprising that these tendencies are being promoted by people in influential roles of yoga teachers or social media personalities who unfortunately were never exposed to authentic yoga or simply have never really bought into it.

These phenomena are obviously not quite two-dimensional, and they have their share of pros, not just cons. To be clear, yoga certainly needs to be adapted to all people and bodies, but at the same time it should always be primarily a "work in", not a "work out". More on that to follow.

How We Got Here

To understand how we arrived at this point, it helps to trace how yoga postures evolved in the first place. Some of you may know that what is almost exclusively practiced these days in most yoga classes around the world is yoga-asana, or simply asana. This term refers to a yoga posture and movement practice, an aspect of yoga that was for the vast majority of history a fairly small part of a complete and holistic system of classic yoga called Ashtanga-yoga, the eight-limb yoga path, a system that was formally introduced around 2000 years ago by a sage named Patanjali in his canonical text on yoga — The Yoga Sutras. 

The essential purpose of practicing yoga according to the Yoga Sutras is threefold:

• Freedom from suffering: To liberate oneself from all forms of dukkha — unnecessary psychological suffering or unsatisfactoriness — a condition that generates considerable distress and tension.

• Clarity of perception: To develop a special kind of discerning wisdom that allows one to see their own reality with heightened clarity, less susceptible to conditioned perception and bias.

• Self-realization: To eventually realize the essential nature of one's Self and become free from the delusion and tension associated with the misperception of who we really are at the core of our being.

The word asana literally means "seat". In fact, for many centuries a particular cross-legged seated position, most likely Padmasana (Lotus Pose), was the only pose one would take to practice yoga. Patanjali's yoga, which is often called Raja Yoga (the "royal" path of yoga), prescribes breathing and meditation exercises as the main pathways for reaching the goals of yoga. These practices were recognized to be most effective when done sitting in an upright position with the spine tall and the whole body relaxed; therefore, one of the eight limbs of classical (Raja) yoga was assigned to the body's posture.

Around the 12th and 13th centuries, several traditions evolved into what became known as Hatha Yoga. While rooted in the essential teachings of classical yoga, Hatha Yoga shifted emphasis toward the subtle body and Prana, which is psycho-spiritual energy, as vehicles for attaining the goals of yoga. These early Hatha yogis explored different ways of intentionally moving Prana and awareness throughout the body, using postures, breathing practices, and a combination of both, eventually expanding the role of asana within the broader yogic system. They also discovered that these types of practices helped them significantly go deeper into meditation in the seated position. However, it took many centuries for asana to assume a primary role in the overall practice of yoga.

The Roots of Modern Asana

Fast forward to the early and mid 20th century: a few yoga innovators started to experiment with different ways of doing yoga postures. The most influential of them was T. Krishnamacharya, who is commonly regarded as "the father of modern yoga". He refined some existing postures and developed dozens more. He also integrated movement into the asana practice, which was revolutionary at that time as asana was mostly comprised of holding postures for extended durations. His most well-known invention is probably the concept of Vinyasa, linking breath and movement together, as well as Vinyasa Krama, which refers to sophisticated progressions of postures and movements sequenced along the thread of breath. Many modern styles of asana trace directly back to his teaching.

The origins of Krishnamacharya's modern yoga-asana remain debated. Many theories and stories have been circulated, none of which can be verified. When asked, Krishnamacharya attributed much of it to his guru, an unknown teacher who lived in the Himalayas, and an ancient text called the Yoga Kurunta, which he claimed to have discovered in some archive in Calcutta but which later mysteriously disappeared without a trace, with no other copies ever being found. Alternative theories have since been suggested by various scholars and commentators, including influences from Indian martial arts and colonial British army gymnastic routines, but there is no reliable historical evidence to support these claims.

During the 1950s and '60s, and to a greater extent in the mid-to-late '70s, yoga started to spread outside of India. B.K.S. Iyengar, who created his own style of yoga (and named it after himself), was the first yoga teacher to gain widespread popularity outside of India. In the 1970s, a few American young and fit hippies, eager to pour blood, sweat, and tears on the quest to become spiritual "athletes", discovered Pattabhi Jois in Mysore, a city in South India, and became mesmerized by his vigorous yoga-asana method (originally intended for hyperactive teenagers), which he branded as Ashtanga-Vinyasa Yoga (commonly known as "Ashtanga"). They enthusiastically imported it to the USA, and later invited Jois repeatedly to come and teach there himself. 

Both Iyengar and Jois were students of Sri Krishnamacharya. The methods they developed contributed enormously to yoga's spread around the world. Yet they also marked a significant shift — away from yoga as a contemplative discipline centered on breath and awareness, and toward performance-based postural yoga. As far as I can tell, and this is based on my own subjective impressions, despite their mastery of asana, neither of them has reached substantial levels of meditation, which are the higher stages of yoga. And it also appears as though they weren't very grounded in the ethical aspects of yoga, most notably causing physical and sometimes psychological harm, as a number of their students have attested over the years.

B.K.S. Iyengar, who studied with his teacher for about two years, for the most part didn't put any importance on breathing and the subtlety of the body. His brand of yoga was focused on attention to technical detail and aesthetics of postures, attempting to engineer human bodies to fit postural molds that he considered ideal. He published photos of himself demonstrating many of these asanas in his famous book, Light on Yoga, which became the gold standard of what yoga postures should look like.

Iyengar also developed and popularized the use of yoga props like blocks, straps, and blankets, making postures more assisted and supported as well as accessible to a wider range of practitioners. This is perhaps his biggest contribution and is still a part of most yoga classes today.

Pattabhi Jois, who studied with his teacher for over 30 years, appeared to be somewhat more aligned with the teachings, particularly with his emphasis on Vinyasa and breathing. However, his main focus was on a prescribed set of postures, which he called "series" — a rigorous system of sequences that demand excessive amounts of effort and time, and which I would argue are poorly suited to most bodies. Jois demanded full commitment to the sequential order of these series and was also known for his use of forceful hands-on adjustments that pushed people beyond appropriate ranges of motion. Furthermore, despite calling his system "Ashtanga Yoga" (eight-limb yoga), he rarely taught any other form of yoga practice besides asana, the third limb.

One of Jois's major innovations was the Mysore style setting, which adapted traditional teacher-student (one-on-one) teaching to fit the rising demand that required yoga to be taught in groups. The student practices one of the prescribed sequences independently, while the teacher walks around the room and offers individualized guidance, often in the form of hands-on adjustments, which are the hallmark of the Ashtanga teaching methodology.

Ashtanga and Iyengar Yoga began gaining significant momentum in North America around the same time as the fitness revolution led by Jane Fonda broke out. They integrated seamlessly with it, becoming a major part of the modern fitness boom and gradually rising in popularity. Both Iyengar and Jois saw the potential and branded their styles of asana, organized the hierarchy and incentives in their schools, and translated it all to considerable power and financial gain.

Despite my somewhat conflicted portrayal of their contribution to the evolution of yoga, I owe a great deal of gratitude to B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. Without them, yoga would probably not have become available to me — or to so many others. Although many aspects of their methods were not sufficiently aligned with the essential teachings of yoga (and often in opposition to them), they planted seeds of yoga throughout the world, and inspired many people, myself included, to recognize the tremendous potential of yoga and seek depth, compassion, and wisdom that couldn't be found in their methods.

For me personally, Krishnamacharya is the main source of inspiration, despite never having met him personally (he died in 1989). I went to great lengths over the years to study with as many of his direct disciples as I could, hoping to absorb his teachings through osmosis. I keep his photo in front of me whenever I do my practice, to remind me that yoga is an all-encompassing system of practice that is meant to target all dimensions of living and being.

The State of Modern Yoga

Numerous styles of yoga-asana sprouted out of the Iyengar and Ashtanga methods — Jivamukti, Vinyasa Yoga, Power Yoga, Anusara, and others. Eventually, yoga became the mainstream cultural phenomenon that it is today. Unfortunately, asana has become synonymous with yoga and a majority of people who attend yoga classes don't really know what yoga is, and what it is not. They presume that it's all about doing these postures, stretching, aligning limbs in particular ways, and often making significant effort. Yoga seems to have an overarching reputation of being a physical exercise with a hint of Eastern mystique. 

Since it started spreading outside of India about 50–60 years ago, asana has rapidly changed. What is offered in most yoga classes today is very different from what it was 20 years ago when I got into yoga. When I look at the state of contemporary yoga, it seems quite clear that formal schools of yoga-asana are gradually going extinct or becoming increasingly niche, while new trends have taken their place, often mixing bits and pieces of formal asana practice with other methodologies like dance, Pilates, calisthenics, Qi Gong, Chinese Medicine, or others. What seems to be predominant these days is the reinvention of asana, almost on a daily basis, by instructors and social media influencers who take pride in creatively choreographing sequences of body postures and movements, in most cases without any meaningful structure or connection to centuries of accumulated wisdom. There is this flow or that flow, this yin or that yang, mishmashing yoga with all sorts of unrelated things to the point where there seems to be no more water left for yoga to be watered down.

Many of these newer forms of movement practice that are being advertised as yoga offer genuine benefits. They may help release physical pain, reduce stress, and cultivate greater awareness of the body and breath. They can also be fun and exciting, which is probably what makes them appealing and trendy. However, what they so blatantly disregard is the profound life-changing potential of yoga to bring real peace, wisdom, and happiness into our lives and teach us how to live well on a fundamental level.

To be clear, I am not against change or advocating for yoga to rigidly stick to how it was in ancient times. In fact, I am guilty of making changes to it all the time. What made Krishnamacharya and other yoga visionaries so valuable to the evolution of yoga is that they pushed it forward without losing touch with its essence. They aspired to make the practice more functional, useful, and accessible, without compromising its efficacy and consistency with the core teachings and goals of yoga. Furthermore, Krishnamacharya's main message was that yoga must be adapted to the individual and not the other way around — a message that I hold at the forefront of my approach to yoga.

Asana in the Context of Yoga

Despite all of the above, I want to be clear: asana practice is wonderful. I highly recommend it! I do it almost every day and plan to do it for as long as I can. It is deeply fulfilling to pay close attention to the body, to link breath to movement, to explore refined alignment and the subtleties of the body. It is also quite rewarding to face some postural challenges, figure them out with proper technique, and learn how to access muscles, joints, and fascia in different ways.

Asana can be a wonderful starting point for someone taking their early steps (or first few years) in yoga, and it can also provide an important complementary value to the more advanced practices, but it cannot take us to the highest stages of yoga. Its main role is preparatory, helping us reduce physical and mental restlessness so that we can sit still for prolonged periods, practice breathing exercises, and enter deeper meditative states.

Ultimately, it is only when we sit still that the internal noise and ingrained mental imprints appear on the surface. When we are busy with moving and holding positions that require deliberate organization of limbs in complex ways, we are bound to be distracted. Perhaps not in the conventional ways of everyday distraction, but nevertheless there is always some level of discontent or aspiration to make progress, or even refine our practice, which is actually very useful in asana. When we meditate, we can let all of that go so we can see ourselves clearly. There is no need to change or produce anything that is not already there.

Practicing asana well can teach us how to hold and move our body with ease and stability, how to use our breath to regulate our nervous system while holding different positions that present different degrees of intensity, and in this process discover more subtle dimensions of body and breath. There are other positive byproducts of practicing asana: it can improve flexibility, mobility, strength, resilience, recovery, sleep, digestion, and overall well-being. It can even lead to better relationships. 

These benefits, along with many others, are all clearly worthwhile, but since we are already on the mat, spending the time and making the effort, we might as well practice it in the context of yoga, which means prioritizing mindfulness, subtlety, and depth, while maintaining the right attitude toward ourselves and our bodies. We also want to make sure that the centered around the breath (or Prana), as it is the very foundation of Hatha Yoga, whose core aim is to resolve the opposition between prana and apana — the patterns of inhalation and exhalation.

Learning how to breathe well develops inner stability and a greater capacity to restore balance. Cultivating an ability to hold attention steady without getting distracted frequently is perhaps the most important aspect of asana, one that will enable us to sit in meditation without immediately wandering off or becoming lost in identification with our thoughts. When we don't prioritize these qualities, there is much less of a chance that doing yoga postures will lead us towards yoga, and instead they tend to be much more oriented towards physical exercise.

Lastly, many yoga schools or teachers tend to encourage us, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to spend all of our designated yoga time on asana. Some may even claim that we have to wait until we are ready to start meditating. For most of yoga's history, the posture that mattered most was not a handstand, a deep backbend, leg behind the head, or any other pose worthy of an Instagram post. It was a simple seat. A human being sitting still in order to observe their own breath, body, and mind with clarity. I highly recommend that you disregard these messages, and that if you feel a calling to explore yoga more in-depth, then start meditating right away — you are ready!

If you find yourself curious about these kinds of topics - join a workshop, a retreat, or any other event on offer.

Looking forward to sharing yoga with you!

Wishing everyone peace and happiness,

♡ Oren

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