Types of Yoga

When people ask me about different types of yoga, they’re usually expecting a description of the various schools of hatha (or physical) yoga.

But yoga can take many forms in your life, besides the practice of asana, or physical postures.

There are six basic categories of yoga:

Hatha Yoga, or physical yoga, the practice of exercises and asana, or postures. This includes Iyengar, Ashtanga, Bikram, Vinyasa, Anusara, and many, many other schools of physical yoga.

Bhakti Yoga, or devotional yoga, includes chanting, singing, and dancing.

Karma Yoga, the yoga of good works and right livelihood

Jhana Yoga, the yoga of study and knowledge, includes reading pertinent texts (I would include in this whatever texts are important to your personal belief system) and studying with teachers, in groups, etc.

Raja Yoga, or meditative yoga

and

Tantra, which, although it has gained “buzz” as a word associated with esoteric sexual practices, means (in the simplest distillation) living life in union with the Divine.