yoga styles

hi, my name is julie smith and i work at the williamson county parks and recreation department as a certified group fitness instructor. i teach yoga and chair yoga at the nolensville facility.

yoga styles, as a yoga instructor, i'm often asked the question "what is the difference between vinyasa yoga and hatha yoga?" so i'd love to briefly define that for you today.

hatha, actually pronounced hah-ta, literal meaning of the word is effort so when its structure and a hata class will really break down the alignment and all the postures putting a lot of effort into that and then finding the breath and really getting into the pose and what that would look like if i was building in mountain pose

i would be placing the feet directly under the hips making sure my feet are even parallel to each other and then starting to maybe feel all four corners of the feet evenly dispersing the weight of the arches, facing the palms forward, lifting the sternum, really taking the chin back - ears in line with the shoulders, lifting through the top of the

head and then finding the breath here as you feel that lifted posture. and you continue to move through poses like that breaking them down throughout the class. so vinyasa - difference between that is you would add onto that. vinyasa: the literal meaning of that word is to place in special order. so a teacher would take a group of about five to seven of those

haha postures and put them into a sequence, break down the alignment principles, and then begin to move and blow through those postures synchronizing the breath to the movement. and so what that might look like is if your instructors say take your vinyasa a half-vinyasa - a very common vinyasa flow involves inhaling the hands up - exhaling

taking the forward fold - inhale halfway lifting - exhale stepping or jumping back into a plank and finding an inhale here and then exhale pressing back into your down dog and then inhaling walking or jumping the feet up and rising up into your standing posture. and that would be repeated multiple times throughout the class. so i hope that helps you to

understand the difference between hatha and vinyasa, and i hope it helps you on your journey to finding what exercises is best for you and your body. to find out more information about the williamson county parks and recreation department, our variety of fitness programs or other department activities and events, visit us online at www.wcparksandrec.com,

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