Yoga has been around for quite some time, way before you and me in fact, however the popularity of yoga in recent years has really skyrocketed its awareness to pretty much everyone in the world, however quite a few people don’t know the difference of popular yoga styles. There are quite a few styles out there and they really have interesting distinctions between them, each providing a different way of meditation per person. If you are looking for the right yoga for you, this is the article you are looking for. Today we want to go through the popular yoga styles and see what they have to offer, maybe if one interests you enough you’ll give the wonderful world of yoga a try, it really is a great way to lose weight and to get your meditation in.

Anusura yoga – Founded by John Friend in 1997, among the popular yoga styles this one really works on the premise that life is a gift and it should be celebrated. It is a modern-day Hatha yoga system that really welcomes you to enjoy the exercise in the middle of your meditation. The idea of Anusura yoga is to enjoy the exercise as it is going, the playful theme really invites you to laugh and alleviate your inner stress by being surrounded by a positive environment. Among the popular yoga styles, the teachers of Anusura yoga are taught to really give the class poses for yoga that will affect their attitude, while cultivating the spiritual and physical aspect for everyone in the room.

As it goes, if you really need some meditation and an uplifting exercise while being exposed to friendly people. This is the ideal yoga among popular yoga styles for you. Bear in mind that the teachers tend to speak more during sessions than other yoga styles however if that does not break your meditation and in fact strengthen your resolve, this is the ideal yoga for you. This welcoming yoga invites you to really see how wonderful life is and how not to take yourself too seriously. One of the really enjoyable popular yoga styles in the market today, try this if you need a positive influence in your life.

Ashtanga yoga – Particularly for those who want order and a physical challenge, this is one of the popular yoga styles for them. The idea is to do precise, planned movements in succeeding order while focusing on breathing as you do your meditation. The theme of this particular yoga is to control your mind. By doing various poses, this will really clear all your thoughts to allow you to really get into meditation.

Some styles among the Ashtanga yoga series

As different as this is from Anusura yoga, Ashtanga yoga really pushes the limits of the body and focus. It is a very vigorous and demanding workout that really aims to purify your body through the rigorous and strict guidelines. In fact most of the classes are taught in Sanskrit, the original language of yoga. This is quite a workout for anyone looking for one, in fact most people who really want to get a good sweat going and wants to see how far they can take yoga, really go for the Ashtanga yoga. Make sure though that you practice, it is unlikely that you will have everything from the get-go, even other trained yoga practitioners may not be able to follow immediately so don’t be so hard on yourself. As the founder of Ashtanga yoga, Sri K Pattabhi Jois said: “Ashtanga yoga is 99% practice; 1% theory. Practice, practice and all is coming.” Quite profound wouldn’t you think so? Among the popular yoga styles, this is the one that will push you to the limit.

Bikram yoga – It is likely that you may know of this style of yoga or at the very least heard about it from your friends as it is one of the most popular yoga styles available to date. Bikram yoga was founded in 1973 by Bikram Choudhury and is a real sweat inducing meditation session. Dedicated to wellness of the body and mind, Bikram yoga does yoga poses in a heated room to really induce the sweat glands, which will in turn remove toxins from the body and cleanse the system.

A definite must in popular yoga styles, Bikram yoga is especially popular for those who want to lose weight. In fact it is said that a single 90 minute session of Bikram yoga can really get your body sweating and you can burn up to 700 calories in one session, that’s just amazing. Given that a lot of people want to lose weight and Bikram yoga happens to really support that, the following of this style of yoga is just stellar, you need to be ready for the hot room and to really focus on your meditation. Make sure that you have a towel and a lot of water, you don’t want to get dehydrated in the process.

Iyengar yoga – This is one of the popular yoga styles that uses quite a few props in order to draw out the best in the positions during yoga. This was developed by B. K. S. Iyengar as a form of Hatha yoga that is focused on structural alignment of the physical body through posture or asanas.

Iyengar yoga styles uses props.

As one of the popular yoga styles available this will really help a lot of new people who just got into yoga. Iyengar yoga really emphasizes posture and they use belts, blocks, towels or other props in order to make sure that your posture is correct along with your breathing.

Yin yoga – One of the slower paced popular yoga styles, Yin yoga focuses on holding poses for longer periods of times. The idea is to fix the circulation of the body and focus on meditation along with your inner selves.

Perhaps one of the popular yoga styles that is believed to be more on the meditative side of yoga, a lot of people use this as a compliment to other yoga. It is very relaxing and perhaps one of the yoga styles that really allows me to get into deep meditation. I like using this when I need to clear my mind and allow myself some real relaxation.

As you can see there are quite a few popular yoga styles out there, in fact there are so much more that I wasn’t able to include in this blog post, that you really just need to experience it yourselves. Yoga is a great exercise and is wonderful at calming the mind via meditation and breathing, the exercise itself is great plus the people you meet who do yoga are just as wonderful. I do hope you take the time to try one of the popular yoga styles or just yoga in itself, it is a great experience and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs a break from the world or just need a good sweat going. Stay healthy!