Sivananda yoga

Sivananda yoga is a fixed, slow, classical class: breathing practice, then sun salutations, then the same twelve basic asanas in the same order every time, with a rest between each one and a long relaxation at the end, taught inside an explicit five point framework that covers diet and outlook as well as posture.

It is named after Swami Sivananda, a physician who became a teacher in Rishikesh, but the practice as taught was systematised by his student Swami Vishnudevananda, who founded the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres and reduced the whole of the teaching to five principles that a householder could actually follow. The result is one of the most consistent things in yoga: a Sivananda open class in Chennai and one in Montreal run the same order.

Two features make it genuinely unusual on a modern timetable. You lie down and rest between postures rather than flowing on, which people find strange for about two classes and then like a great deal. And the inversions come near the beginning, which is a real safety consideration and is dealt with below.

The postures are the visible part and the five points are the framework. They are worth stating in full because they explain why a Sivananda class behaves as it does.

• Proper exercise, meaning asana. Not exercise for fitness, but posture used to keep the spine and joints mobile and the body serviceable.
• Proper breathing, meaning pranayama. Taught as a subject and taught first. This is why the class opens with breathing rather than closing with it. Anulom Vilom and Kapalbhati are the usual opening pair.
• Proper relaxation, meaning savasana. Used constantly, not once. Between postures, and at length at the end.
• Proper diet, meaning a vegetarian one. Lacto vegetarian, simple, local and seasonal. This is stated openly as part of the practice rather than implied.
• Positive thinking and meditation. The philosophical half, with a period of seated meditation and short chants attached to the class.

Whether you take all five is your business, and no honest teacher can make the diet a condition of learning a posture. What I would say in defence of the framework is that it is the only one of the popular styles that admits out loud that an hour on a mat is not the whole of it. The eight limbs of yoga is the older and larger version of the same idea.

The order is the same everywhere and it does not vary, so you can read it once and know what you are walking into.

1. Opening chant and breathing, ten minutes. Seated, then Kapalbhati and Anulom Vilom.
2. Sun salutations, ten minutes. Usually six to twelve rounds of Surya Namaskar, then leg raises on the back.
3. The twelve basic asanas, thirty five minutes. In this fixed order: Sirsasana, the headstand; Sarvangasana, the shoulderstand; Halasana, the plough; Matsyasana, the fish; Paschimottanasana, the seated forward bend; Bhujangasana, the cobra; the locust; the bow; the half spinal twist; the crow; the standing forward bend; and Trikonasana, the triangle.
4. Final relaxation, ten to fifteen minutes. Savasana, guided, and long.

Notice what that order does. It puts the two inversions in positions one and two, when the body is warm from sun salutations but the class has barely begun, and it puts the standing work last, which is the reverse of almost every other tradition. Notice also the rest: you return to savasana between the postures, which is why a class with only twelve asanas fills an hour comfortably.

The safety point, said plainly. A headstand in the first weeks is not appropriate for everybody and a good Sivananda teacher will give you a supported alternative without being asked. If you have a neck problem, high blood pressure, glaucoma, a detached retina, or you are pregnant, the headstand and the shoulderstand are the two postures to leave out, and both this site's Sirsasana and Sarvangasana pages list the contraindications in full. Yoga for neck and shoulder pain and yoga for high blood pressure both name them in their avoid lists.

Sivananda has a clear temperament attached to it, and the question is mostly whether it is yours.

• You want one complete framework and you want it to stop changing. Sivananda. Nothing else on this list is this consistent, anywhere in the world.
• You want the breathing taught properly rather than mentioned. Sivananda or kundalini. Sivananda is the gentler of the two by a long way.
• You are a beginner who wants to learn a real practice slowly. A good option, with one condition: be willing to say no to the headstand for the first few months.
• You have a neck problem, high blood pressure or glaucoma. Speak to the teacher first. The two inversions arrive early, and you will need an alternative ready rather than improvised.
• You want fitness. Not Sivananda. It is slow held practice, one to two metabolic equivalents for most of it. Power yoga or vinyasa.
• You would resent being taught about diet. Then take the postures and leave the rest, or choose Iyengar, which teaches only the practice.
• You get bored by repetition. Not Sivananda. The order never changes, and that is deliberate.

My verdict. Of all the named schools, this is the one closest to how I was taught and the one whose logic I most agree with, so take that bias into account. The rest between postures is the thing I would defend hardest: it lets a posture finish before the next begins, and a room full of people who have actually rested does not fight the next instruction. Where I differ, and I differ firmly, is the early inversion. I have taught a great many people over sixty and I would not put a headstand near the front of an hour for any of them, warm or not. If you go, go for the breathing, the order and the relaxation, and be entirely comfortable spending your first year in a supported version of postures one and two.

Sivananda is not taught here, and nothing here carries a style name. What exists is one teacher, about forty years of teaching, one hall at the residents' association in MSR Nagar in north Bangalore, and an hour of asana, pranayama and relaxation taught slowly, in person there or live online, for all ages and all levels.

There is an honest family resemblance, and it should be described as a resemblance rather than a claim. The breathing is taught as its own subject rather than added at the end. The relaxation at the close is long and is not treated as a reward. The order of the hour does not change from week to week, on the principle that what should change is you and not the class. None of that makes this Sivananda yoga, and no lineage is being asserted here: the owner has never labelled his class by style and this site will not do it for him.

The clear difference is the inversions. They are not near the front of the hour, and props and modifications are offered before anybody struggles rather than after. If you want to work through the classical material yourself, Surya Namaskar is here step by step, the seven day beginner plan is a fixed unchanging week, and how to start yoga at home explains the order. The first class is free, and the classes page has the timings and the costs.

Because the sequence is fixed, it is the one style where you can prepare properly, and I would rather you arrived having practised four of the twelve than none.

Start with the ones that will be asked of you immediately: Sarvangasana and Halasana, both of which load the neck and both of which have a supported version worth learning first, and Matsyasana, which is the counter posture that makes the previous two tolerable. Sirsasana is the one to leave alone until somebody who can see you says otherwise.

The rest are more forgiving. Paschimottanasana is where a stiff back is exposed and a bent knee solves most of it. Bhujangasana goes wrong when the hands push instead of the back lifting. Trikonasana closes the standing block and is the posture I would use to judge whether somebody is ready for the rest of the class at all. Between all of them you will be lying in Savasana, and the kneeling seat used for the breathing at the start is Vajrasana or a cross legged version of Padmasana. For the terms you will hear without explanation, the glossary is quicker than asking, and how often should you do yoga covers how many of these a week is useful.