What Is Hatha Yoga?
If you’ve never practised yoga before, it can be difficult to know what to expect. You might picture people sitting cross-legged, stretching into complicated shapes or standing on their heads. You might even think you need to be flexible before you start. You don’t.
At its heart, Classical Hatha Yoga is a practice of learning to understand yourself more deeply through the body, breath and mind. The physical postures are an important part of the practice, but they are not the whole of yoga.
In fact, the traditional understanding of yoga is much broader.
Yoga is more than physical postures
In Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (text from over 2000 + years ago) yoga is presented as a complete path of practice. Patanjali describes eight interconnected limbs, known as The Eight Limbs of Yoga. These provide a framework for developing greater awareness, steadiness and clarity in our lives.
If anyone want’s to learn more about the philosophical, and psychology aspect of yoga then I highly recommend reading Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
If you have practised yoga before then you also might have heard about “ The Eight Limbs of Yoga” these are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi.
You don't need to memorise these Sanskrit words to practise yoga. They simply help us understand that yoga was never intended to be only about what we do with our bodies on a yoga mat.
The first two limbs, Yama and Niyama, relate to how we live and how we relate to ourselves and others. They include principles such as non-harming, truthfulness, contentment, self-discipline and self-reflection. They provide an ethical and personal foundation for the practice.
Then comes Asana, which is the physical practice of yoga postures. This is the part most people are familiar with today.
But even here, Patanjali's description is quite different from the modern idea of yoga as achieving increasingly difficult poses. In Sutra II.46, he describes asana as sthira sukham asanam — traditionally understood as a posture that is steady and comfortable.
The aim isn't simply to make our bodies more flexible or to achieve a particular shape. Through the physical practice, we learn stability, mobility, strength, balance and awareness. We also begin to notice how we respond when something feels challenging or unfamiliar.
Then we begin to work with the breath.
The fourth limb is Pranayama.
This is where the practice begins to move beyond the physical body and into our relationship with the breath.
In Classical Hatha Yoga, the breath is incredibly important. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (another ancient text) gives considerable attention to pranayama and presents practices for gradually refining and regulating the breath. But we don't need to rush into complicated breathing techniques.
An important foundation is learning to experience the natural breath without unnecessary strain. We begin by observing how we breathe, noticing the relationship between the breath and the body, and gradually developing greater awareness and control.
This is something I particularly emphasise in my own teaching. The breath isn't something we need to force. It is something we learn to listen to.
Turning our attention inward
The fifth limb, Pratyahara, is often described as withdrawal or turning inward of the senses.
That doesn't mean shutting ourselves off from the world.
It is more about learning that our attention doesn't always have to be pulled outward by everything happening around us.
Think about lying down at the end of a yoga class. Your body is still, your eyes are closed and gradually you become less interested in what is happening outside the room. You begin to notice your breathing, sensations in your body and the movement of your mind.
That ability to turn our attention inward is an important part of the traditional yoga journey.
Learning to steady the mind
The final three limbs are Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, which relate to increasingly refined states of concentration, meditation and absorption.
Dharana is concentration — learning to place and maintain our attention on something.
Dhyana is meditation — a sustained, continuous flow of attention.
Samadhi describes a deeper state of absorption, and where the mind is quiet, and free of suffering.
These aren't things we need to achieve in an hours Tuesday night yoga class.
Rather, they show us where the broader practice of yoga can lead. The physical practice, breath practices and turning inward are not isolated activities. They can gradually prepare us for greater mental steadiness and meditation.
So where does Hatha Yoga fit?
This is where the Hatha Yoga Pradipika becomes particularly interesting.
Hatha Yoga developed its own rich system of practices involving asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha and meditation, with the aim of supporting deeper states of yoga practice.
The Hatha Yoga Pradipika describes Hatha Yoga as a means of progressing towards Raja Yoga. In other words, the practices of the body and breath can help prepare us for the deeper practices of concentration, meditation and absorption.
So when we practise Hatha Yoga, we're not simply exercising. We might be moving through postures, working on balance, strengthening our legs or opening our hips. But while we're doing that, we're also learning to pay attention.
We notice when we hold our breath.
We notice when our mind becomes distracted.
We notice when we become frustrated because something is difficult.
We notice when we rush.
And gradually, through practice, we develop the ability to respond with a little more awareness.
You don't need to be flexible to start (forget the Instagram images of headstands and splits)
This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about yoga.
You don't need to be flexible.
You don't need to be strong.
You don't need to know Sanskrit.
You don't need to be able to sit comfortably cross-legged.
You don't need to meditate.
And you certainly don't need to be able to put your foot behind your head!
You simply start where you are.
The physical practice meets you where your body is today. Perhaps you are stiff. Perhaps you're strong but lacking mobility. Perhaps your balance isn't what it used to be. Perhaps you're recovering from an injury or simply haven't moved your body regularly for a while.
That is all okay.
Yoga isn't asking you to arrive already knowing how to do it.
It is asking you to pay attention.
Why Hatha Yoga is one of the best places to begin
If you’ve never done yoga before, Hatha Yoga is a wonderful place to start. It gives you the opportunity to learn the foundations of yoga without feeling like you need to keep up with a fast-moving class or already know what you’re doing.
Rather than rushing from one posture to another, Hatha gives you time to understand the shapes of the postures, how to coordinate movement with the breath, how to use your body safely and how to develop awareness of what you are actually experiencing. You begin to build the skills that will support your practice for years to come.
And while Hatha Yoga is often described in modern studios as a slower style of yoga, its roots are much deeper than that.
Where did Hatha Yoga originate from?
Hatha Yoga developed within the broader tradition of yoga in India, with important texts such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Gheranda Samhita and Shiva Samhita documenting practices that shaped the Hatha tradition.
The word Hatha is often translated as ha meaning sun and tha meaning moon, although traditional interpretations of the term are more nuanced. At its heart, Hatha Yoga is a systematic approach to working with the body, breath, senses and mind as part of the larger journey of yoga.
The physical practices we commonly associate with yoga today, asana, pranayama, mudra, bandha and meditation — have deep roots in these Hatha traditions.
This is also why Hatha Yoga is much more than a collection of physical postures.
The foundation beneath modern yoga
Many of the styles you see in yoga studios today have developed from, or been strongly influenced by, Hatha Yoga and the wider traditions of physical yoga.
Modern practices such as Vinyasa, Power Yoga, Ashtanga Vinyasa and many contemporary forms of flow yoga draw heavily on Hatha-based asana practice, even though they may look and feel very different in a modern class.
So when you practise Hatha, you aren't practising an outdated version of yoga. You are learning from one of the important foundations of the physical yoga traditions that have influenced much of the yoga we practise today.
And that makes Hatha particularly valuable for beginners. You don't need to start with the most complicated or physically demanding version of yoga. You can start with the foundations, learn how the practice works, and allow your practice to develop from there.
At Citta Flow, this is how we approach Hatha Yoga: as a practice you can grow into, rather than something you have to be good at before you begin.
You might come for the stretch, but discover much more..
This is something I see regularly at Citta Flow. People often come because they want to stretch. They want to move their bodies, feel less stiff, improve their balance or simply have an hour away from everything else. And those are all wonderful reasons to practise yoga. But with regular practice, something else can begin to happen, you start noticing your breathing, you become more aware of tension in your body, you recognise when you're holding your breath, and you notice how your mind responds to challenge, but you also become more comfortable being still. and you might even begin to notice how you respond to life outside the yoga studio.
That is the beauty of a traditional Hatha Yoga practice.
The yoga isn't only what happens when you're standing on your mat.
It gradually becomes a way of becoming more aware of how you move, how you breathe, how you think and how you live.
And you don't have to understand all of that before you begin.
You simply start with the body.
You learn to pay attention.
And, little by little, the practice opens the door to the breath, the mind and the deeper dimensions of yoga.
That is Classical Hatha Yoga.
