Types of Yoga: 13 Styles, What Each One Offers and How to Choose

The best yoga style is the one you will still be practicing six months from now.

The types of yoga include slow, supportive practices like restorative and yin yoga, fast, athletic styles like vinyasa, ashtanga and hot yoga, and the classical spiritual paths of karma, bhakti, jnana and raja yoga. Each combines postures, breath and attention in a different balance.

Knowing the differences saves you from quitting after one class that was simply the wrong style for you. The styles below start with the physical practices most studios teach, then move to the older spiritual paths.

What Is Yoga?

Yoga is a practice from India that unites the body, breath and mind. Most people know it through asanas, the physical postures, but traditional yoga also includes breathwork, meditation, ethics and devotion.

Every style draws on the same roots and puts the emphasis in a different place. That emphasis is what you are choosing when you choose a type of yoga.

What Are the Main Physical Types of Yoga?

These are the styles you will find on a studio schedule, roughly in order from gentlest to most demanding.

Hatha Yoga

Hatha is the foundation most modern styles grew out of. A class moves at a steady pace through basic postures and breathing, with time to settle into each pose, which makes hatha yoga the classic starting point for beginners.

Restorative Yoga

Restorative yoga holds a few poses for long periods, fully supported by blankets, bolsters and blocks, so the body can let go completely. The goal is deep rest and stress relief, and the guide to restorative yoga explains why the stillness can bring up emotion too.

Yin Yoga

Yin yoga holds passive floor poses for several minutes, and advanced practitioners may stay in one pose for five minutes or more. The long holds put gentle stress on connective tissue like ligaments and fascia, and yin yoga draws on ideas from traditional Chinese medicine.

Iyengar Yoga

Iyengar yoga, developed by B. K. S. Iyengar and set out in his 1966 book Light on Yoga, focuses on precise alignment (Wikipedia). Props such as belts and blocks let beginners, older students and people with injuries practice safely, which is why iyengar yoga is popular for rehabilitation.

Vinyasa Yoga

Vinyasa links poses into a continuous flow timed to the breath. No two classes are quite alike, the pace can feel like a workout, and vinyasa yoga builds strength, flexibility and stamina together.

Ashtanga Yoga

Ashtanga follows set sequences of poses in the same order every time, linked by flowing movements. K. Pattabhi Jois popularized it and founded his institute in Mysore, India, in 1948. Ashtanga yoga is demanding and disciplined, and it rewards consistent practice.

Hot Yoga

Hot yoga is any style practiced in a heated room. The best-known version, Bikram yoga, became popular in the early 1970s and uses a fixed sequence of 26 postures in a room heated to 105°F (41°C) with 40 percent humidity. Other hot classes use a vinyasa flow.

Drink plenty of water, and skip the heat if you are pregnant or have heart problems unless your doctor approves.

Aerial Yoga

Aerial yoga uses a fabric hammock hung from the ceiling to support the body in poses and inversions. Michelle Dortignac developed it in 2006 by mixing yoga, Pilates and dance. It is playful, builds strength, and lets you hang upside down without loading your neck.

Kundalini Yoga

Kundalini yoga is a spiritual practice built around awakening kundalini energy, pictured as a coiled serpent at the base of the spine. Classes combine repeated movements, breathwork, chanting and meditation to guide that energy up through the chakras to the crown.

It can be intense, so learn it from an experienced teacher. The guide to kundalini yoga covers the practice, and the article on kundalini awakening explains what the awakening itself can feel like.

What Is the Difference Between Hatha and Vinyasa Yoga?

Hatha and vinyasa use many of the same poses, and the difference is pace. A hatha class holds each pose for several breaths and pauses between them, which gives you time to learn alignment.

Vinyasa changes pose with each breath, with no rest in between, so it feels more like cardio. If you are new, start with hatha. Move to vinyasa once the basic poses feel familiar.

What Are the Spiritual Paths of Yoga?

Classical Indian philosophy describes four paths of yoga that need no mat at all. Each suits a different temperament.

Many practitioners combine them. A daily meditation practice is a simple way to start on the raja path.

What Are the Benefits of Yoga?

According to the US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, research suggests yoga may relieve stress, improve sleep, balance and emotional health, and ease neck pain, tension headaches and knee arthritis pain (NCCIH). Its benefit for low back pain appears to be small.

Yoga also helps many people manage anxiety and depression symptoms and live better with chronic illness. Different styles lean toward different benefits: restorative and yin for stress and sleep, vinyasa and ashtanga for fitness, and kundalini and the spiritual paths for inner growth.

How Do You Choose the Right Type of Yoga?

Start with what you want from the practice, then match the style to it.

Try two or three styles before you decide, and pay as much attention to the teacher as to the style. A good teacher adjusts poses for beginners and advanced students alike.

Your mat matters too. Thicker mats cushion the knees for slow styles, thinner mats give more stability in standing flows, and a non-slip surface is essential for vinyasa and hot yoga.

Where Should You Start With Yoga?

Nobody starts yoga flexible, calm or sure of what they are doing, and nobody needs to.

Choose one style from the list above that matches the reason you came, book a single beginner class this week, and give it three sessions before you judge it. More guides to individual styles live in the yoga section.