The umbrella most modern yoga styles fall under and one of the most misused words in Western studios. A slow, foundational practice when taught correctly. Worth understanding before everything else.

Hatha is the yoga most people picture when they hear the word yoga at all, and that's not an accident. It's the umbrella that nearly every modern Western style falls under. But its roots go back thousands of years, long before it became the gentle, foundational class you'll find at almost any studio.

Hatha was popularized in its more modern form by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya in the early twentieth century, though its philosophical roots are ancient. Originally, the goal wasn't fitness. The combination of pranayama, breathwork, and asana, physical postures, was meant to cleanse and connect the mind and body, ultimately reaching a meditative state of oneness with the self and, beyond that, with something larger. God, higher consciousness, the universe, depending on the tradition you're standing in.

In the West, "Hatha" on a class schedule usually signals something gentle and accessible: basic poses, a slower pace, a forgiving entry point for beginners. That's a real shift from its original scope, which encompassed an entire yogic lifestyle, not just a sequence of postures. What survives in a modern Hatha class is the breath-and-movement foundation that every other style on this list eventually builds from.