What Makes Yoga So Fascinating?
Anxiety is excitement without breath.- Fritz Perls, Psychologist
How did our ancients develop this wonder called Yoga? Here’s what contemporary trends tell us.
First, the science of zooarchaeology studies how humans learn from different forms or life by paying close attention to them. For example, our ancestors learnt to build houses from the way beavers constructed their wooden homes. It’s possible that close and prolonged observation of the way animals sit, rest and sleep led to multiple yogic postures, and we know that several asanas are named after animals.
Second, yogic postures are founded on isometric form of exercise. Isometric is a combination of two Latin words - isos (equal) and -metria (measuring) - where muscle contraction occurs without any joint movement or change in muscle length. In other words, the length of the muscle and the angle of the joint do not change during yogic postures such as the plank, though contraction strength may vary.
Third, breath regulation. They learnt that breath was connected to state of mind and in combination with postures had the potential to increase their positive effect.
Breathing rate changes almost instantaneously in response to stress or arousal. Generally, breathing is automatic, and we take it for granted. Furthermore, muscles that control breathing take their orders from the brain, unlike the heart with its own pacemaker. This observation led to an insight: use breathing to control the mind.
The question remains: how to combine breathing with postures? For this they relied on what is now called natural experiments.
Suppose we want to know whether a medicine will be effective in reducing fever. Researchers will divide individuals with fever into two groups and give medicine to one group and an ordinary pill (placebo) to the other. They will then observe the effects on the two groups. This is a highly simplified version of randomized experiments.
However, this is not suitable for investigating many societal issues. For example, we cannot have one group of students who complete high school and another who are not allowed to so we can see how high school affects income later in life!
This gap was filled by an innovative method, called natural experiments. In natural experiments, researchers do not control who receives the medication (interventions), but observe naturally-occurring events or policy changes.
For example, Nobel Laureate David Card and others studied the relationship between the minimum wage and employment in the early 1990s. They compared the labor markets on both sides of the border between the US states of New Jersey, where the minimum wage had been increased, and Pennsylvania, where it had not. In that context, their research showed that the minimum wage increase had no downward effect on the number of employees. This finding went against the prevailing theory at the time, which assumed that an increase in the minimum wage would destroy jobs as it would make it more expensive for companies to do business.
Thus, yoga has evolved in three waves:
In the first wave, traditional yoga evolved slowly as a deeply spiritual and scientific system, honed over thousands of years to align the body, mind and spirit.
In the second wave, contemporary yoga was popularized in forms like Hatha Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga, or guru-shishya lineages such as Sivananda Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, or Satyananda Yoga. In all these the core practices remained largely consistent, with only minor variations. These forms are grounded in both physical discipline and philosophical wisdom.
The third wave consists of hybrid practices or new forms of yoga. Power Yoga, for example, is suited to burning calories. Aerial Yoga uses silk hammocks to suspend practitioners in midair. HIIT Yoga and CrossFit Yoga attempt to fuse high-intensity interval training and weightlifting principles with yogic postures. Then there’s Paddleboard Yoga and Spin & Yoga.
Technology offers complements to this as well. Moonbird, for example, uses handheld devices that guide users through paced breathing with gentle physical movements. You essentially feel the device move in your hand and breathe along with it.
On this International Yoga Day, we find that yoga is alive and kicking, rapidly evolving to meet the needs of people. However, we must remember that there is an underlying science which demands discipline and synchronization of breath, with a progressive series of postures promoting physical endurance and mental clarity.
Yoga is as much about doing as being. Understanding this guiding principle will make the new forms endure.
