Yoga Axis

Modern American yoga comes in all sizes, shapes, and styles. 

Some styles are extremely conscious about alignment, while others are more focused on movement.  This dichotomy forms a continuum from very exacting alignment to consistent flow, with varying degrees of both along the way.

Similarly, yoga styles differ in intensities from relaxed holds to strong actions.  This dichotomy goes from hard to soft, with varying degrees of both along the way.

These two dichotomies can be drawn as continuous, orthogonal axises, with an X-axis ranging from Align to Flow and a Y-axis ranging from Hard to Soft.  It would look like this:

I teach at least two classes a week at Binghamton Yoga studio. 

The first class is Monday evening from 5:45-6:45pm.  It's a large class with lots of post-work yogis, who really want an exercise-oriented approach.  Therefore, I generally work this class more toward the Flow end of the X-axis and slightly north of the Y-axis.

The second class is Friday morning from 9:30-10:45am.  It's a smaller class with a more relaxed, slightly-older crowd and it's labelled "Align & Flow," so I tend to try to stay very close to the middle of both styles.

Placing my two classes on the Yoga Axis, they would look like this:

Based on my understanding of yoga-related Sanskrit and martial arts terminology, I think it would be appropriate to rename these axises as such:

• Align to Flow becomes Chit-Ananda
• Hard to Soft becomes Yang-Yin

And is drawn like this:

When I create a class, I often spend time thinking about where I want the focus of my class to be in this Chit-Ananada / Yang-Yin plane.  I also choose poses that move us through a range from dynamic movement to steady alignment and hard, intense climax to soft, slow ending.

I'd love to hear your comments about this plane.

Jason