What Is Hatha Yoga?

At the moment, we're doing a deep dive into Hatha Yoga in my classes.

Not just Hatha postures. Hatha Yoga.

We're spending several weeks exploring what actually makes up the practice: asana, breath, pranayama, bandha, mudra, meditation — and, importantly, how all of those things fit together.

By the time you read this, we'll be into our fourth week.

I've been explaining quite a lot as we go, but there's only so much information you can take in while you're also trying to breathe, engage Mula Bandha and remember what I've just asked you to do with your left foot.

So I thought I'd put it here too.

You can read it without being upside down.

And if you don't come to my classes, this is a chance to find out what Hatha Yoga actually is, because it's probably not quite what you think.

Hatha Yoga isn't just slow yoga

If you look at a modern yoga timetable, Hatha usually appears alongside Vinyasa, Ashtanga, Iyengar and Yin.

And generally, if you book a Hatha class today, you can expect something slower. You'll probably practise individual postures and stay in them for several breaths rather than continuously flowing from one pose to another.

That's how we use the word now.

But historically, Hatha Yoga wasn't a style of exercise class.

It was a whole system of yoga.

And the postures were only one part of it.

So what actually is Hatha Yoga?

Hatha Yoga developed in India over many centuries, becoming particularly prominent during the medieval period.

And one of the things that made it different from earlier forms of yoga was its use of the body.

The body wasn't something to ignore while you got on with the serious business of meditation.

It became part of the method.

Hatha practitioners used physical postures, breath control and other techniques to work with the body and what they understood as its subtle energies.

The intention was to prepare the body, control the breath and life-force energy, steady the mind and ultimately move towards deeper states of meditation.

So Hatha Yoga was physical.

But it was never just physical.

It was a spiritual practice.

And Hatha doesn't mean gentle

This is another one worth clearing up.

Today, if someone tells me they want to try Hatha because they're looking for something gentle, I know exactly what they mean.

Modern Hatha classes often are slower.

But the Sanskrit word haṭha carries a sense of force, effort or forceful means.

Which rather ruins the image of the medieval Hatha yogi having a lovely gentle stretch before heading home for a cup of tea.

Some of the traditional practices were demanding. Some were extremely disciplined. Some would seem downright bizarre to us now.

This wasn't yoga designed primarily to make people feel relaxed.

It had a much bigger purpose.

So what did Hatha yogis actually do?

Some of it will be very familiar.

Some of it considerably less so.

Asana — posture

This is the bit we all recognise.

But asana wasn't the enormous collection of poses we associate with yoga today. The physical postures were part of the preparation for everything else.

Pranayama — working with the breath and life-force energy

Breathing practices became enormously important in Hatha Yoga.

That could involve deliberately changing the breath, controlling it or retaining it.

The breath wasn't just there to accompany the movement. It was a practice in its own right.

Bandha — the locks

If you've been practising with me recently, you'll have heard plenty about Mula Bandha.

Bandhas involve muscular and energetic actions traditionally used to contain and direct Prana — life-force energy.

Mudra — seals

When we hear the word Mudra, we often think of hand gestures.

Historically, Hatha mudras could involve much more of the body. They were practices intended to affect the movement of energy within it.

Shatkarmas — cleansing practices

These are the traditional purification techniques.

There are six main categories, involving things such as cleansing the nasal passages and digestive system.

We'll talk about them.

We won't necessarily be doing them all.

You can relax.

Meditation

This is the bit that helps make sense of everything else.

Because the physical practices weren't the final destination.

They were preparing the practitioner for meditation.

What was all this actually for?

Not better hamstrings.

Not a stronger core.

Not getting your leg behind your head.

The ultimate goal of Hatha Yoga was spiritual liberation.

The body was being prepared.

The breath was being controlled.

Energy was being directed.

The mind was being steadied.

And gradually the practitioner was being prepared for deeper meditation.

This is why I've been bringing meditation into our Hatha practice rather than treating it as a completely separate thing that we occasionally do at the end.

It belongs there.

Asana, pranayama, Bandha, Mudra and meditation aren't a random collection of yogic techniques.

They are connected.

Where do we know all this from?

We have a number of historical Hatha Yoga texts.

Probably the best known is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, compiled around the 15th century by Svatmarama.

It describes asana, pranayama, cleansing practices, mudras, bandhas and meditation.

And here's something that gives you an idea of how different its priorities were from ours.

It describes fifteen asanas.

Fifteen.

That's it.

Compare that with the number of postures we can get through in a modern Vinyasa class.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika wasn't particularly interested in providing hundreds of different ways to arrange your arms and legs.

The postures were important because of what they were preparing you for.

So where did all our modern yoga poses come from?

This is where yoga history gets really interesting.

The yoga we practise today wasn't simply handed down unchanged for thousands of years.

Modern posture-based yoga developed much more recently and was shaped by Hatha Yoga traditions alongside other influences, including Indian physical culture and, later, international systems of gymnastics and exercise.

That doesn't make modern yoga somehow less authentic.

It makes its history more interesting.

Yoga has always changed.

So is Vinyasa Hatha? Is Ashtanga Hatha?

Sort of.

And this is where our nice neat yoga labels stop being particularly helpful.

Most of the physical yoga we practise today has connections to the broader Hatha tradition.

But modern styles have developed their own methods.

In Vinyasa, we tend to link postures together through movement and breath.

In Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, we practise a set sequence using a particular method involving posture, breath, gaze and Bandha.

In Iyengar Yoga, there is a strong emphasis on precision, alignment, sequencing and the use of props.

And in what we now call a Hatha class, we generally move more slowly, practise individual postures and stay in them for longer.

But they're not completely separate species of yoga.

They're related.

And historically, Hatha is much bigger than the box we've put it in on the timetable.

Why am I teaching it like this?

Because I don't want to teach you a collection of poses.

I want you to understand a little more about what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Slowing the practice down gives us time to investigate.

What happens to your breath when you stay in a posture?

Where are you gripping unnecessarily?

What happens when you engage Mula Bandha?

Can you use effort without hardening everything?

Can you remain still?

What happens in your mind when a posture becomes difficult?

Can you notice the urge to move, adjust, fiddle, give up or mentally write your shopping list?

Can you actually pay attention?

Suddenly Triangle Pose isn't just a shape you're trying to get right.

It's somewhere to practise.

And that is much more interesting.

The poses are only part of yoga

If there's one thing I want you to take from our Hatha exploration, it's this:

Yoga is bigger than asana.

We have become incredibly focused on the physical practice of yoga.

And I understand why. I love asana. I've spent years teaching it. It makes us stronger and more mobile. It can feel fantastic.

But it's one piece of something much bigger.

The breath matters.

Attention matters.

Stillness matters.

Meditation matters.

And understanding that changes the way we practise the physical poses too.

I'm not trying to recreate medieval Hatha Yoga in Bury St Edmunds.

I'm certainly not suggesting that we adopt every practice described in a 15th-century Sanskrit text.

But I do think it's worth knowing where some of what we practise comes from and what it was originally intended to do.

Because once you know that, yoga starts to look rather different.

Want to find out more?

You absolutely don't have to.

You can come to class, practise it and let me do the reading.

But if I've made you curious, there are some good places to start.

The Hatha Yoga Pradipika

If you want to go back towards the source, read the Hatha Yoga Pradipika.

Don't expect it to read like a modern yoga manual. That's part of the fun.

You'll recognise some things immediately.

Others will make you wonder whether you're reading about the same practice at all.

That's exactly why it's worth dipping into.

Roots of Yoga — James Mallinson and Mark Singleton

If you really want to understand where yoga practices came from, this is excellent.

It's a collection of translated passages from a huge range of historical yoga texts, organised by subject and accompanied by explanations and historical context.

It's fascinating.

It's also enormous.

Don't feel you need to start at page one and diligently work your way through it.

Dip in.

Yoga Body — Mark Singleton

This one is about the development of modern posture-based yoga.

It's particularly interesting if you've ever assumed that the poses and sequences we practise today have been handed down unchanged for thousands of years.

They haven't.

Personally, I find the real story far more interesting.

And we'll keep practising it

Over the next few weeks, I'll keep bringing all of this into our classes.

We'll practise the postures.

But we'll also breathe.

We'll explore pranayama.

We'll use bandha.

We'll experiment with mudra.

We'll sit still.

We'll meditate.

And we'll keep joining the dots between them.

Because once you stop thinking of Hatha Yoga as “the slower type of yoga”, a much bigger practice opens up.

And the question becomes less:

How am I doing this pose?

And more:

What is all this practice actually for?