Finding A Yoga Class That Is Right For You

You want to take a Hatha class. You have heard that Hatha limbers, relaxes and strengthens the body, while toning the internal organs and stimulating the endocrine glands–and you are ready to try it. Alternatively, maybe you took a few classes some years ago and miss the motivation and support a regular class provides. Therefore, you open a yoga directory to find out where the nearest courses are being taught.

If you are like me, you may find yourself starting at the ages of class offerings in bewilderment. I thumbed through a lengthy list of local classes and found some teachers credentialed by Integral Yoga International, some certified as Iyengar practitioners, and other instructors noting their kundalini yoga training. What does it all mean? Are these classes more or less the same or is there some dramatic difference that I should know about before I sign up?

I started feeling a little anxious as I pored over the teachers credentials. I had heard rumors about instructors stomping on their students backs while the students lay in the crocodile pose, and although I am sure there are people who benefit from this method of teaching, I suspect I would not be one. I want to make sure the Hatha course I sign up for is one I will feel comfortable in that the teacher and I are thinking along pretty much the same lines in terms of what we hope to give to and get from a Hatha session.

Then I noticed that although there are many teachers out there, the number of lineages they represent is surprisingly few. Discover who the founder of a particular Hatha tradition is and you have an important clue to the type of Hatha being taught. The late Swami Sivananda, the prolific sage from Rishikesh, authored dozens of books on many aspects of yoga and fostered at least four major branches of American Hatha yoga. He was the guru of Swami Satchidananda and of Swami Vishnu-devananda. Vishnu-devananda’s disciple Yogi Hari comes from this lineage, as does television’s best-known Hatha teacher, Lilias Folan.

Krishnamacharya, head of the Yoga Institute at the royal palace of Mysore, had a big effect on the development of contemporary Hatha. He was B. K. S. Iyengar’s teacher, and also taught K. Pattabhi Jois, who was in turn the teacher of Hatha’s other great television proselytizer, Richard Freeman. The Hatha master Desikachar, enormously popular in Europe, is also from this tradition.

Other teachers from India who dramatically influenced the way Hatha is taught in this country include Paramahansa Yogananda, Swami Rama, Swami Kripalvananda, and Yogi Bhajan. I decided to approach representatives from these major traditions to ask exactly what you and I can expect when we sign up for a Hatha yoga course with one of their certified instructors.