The British Wheel of Yoga

The British Wheel of Yoga, a registered charity, is the largest yoga organisation in the country. Principally teaching hatha yoga, it also offers a range of courses including a foundation course, teacher-training diploma and post-training modules, as well as information about your nearest yoga class.
bwy.org.uk

Hatha yoga (classical yoga)

Hatha yoga is generally interpreted as the yoga of physical action and is practised in most western yoga classes.

Kundalini yoga

The aim of kundalini yoga is to awaken dormant energies in a subtle way. The principle idea of it was turned into a system by Yogi Bhajan (the son of a Sikh doctor) in 1969. Also called the "yoga of awareness", it is commonly referred to as kundalini, although it does not concentrate on raising the kundalini energy, or pure consciousness, but promises "to make you the best you can be".

Ashtanga yoga

Ashtanga is named after the practice of yoga as laid down by the sage Patanjali - "ashta" meaning eight and "anga" meaning limb which symbolised the eightfold path of yoga of which asanas, or postures, is only one. The highest-profile teacher of Ashtanga yoga is K Pattabhi Jois, who was a student of Krishnamacharya, who taught Iyengar. Ashtanga is a fast-paced gymnastic style of yoga popular in the west because it represents the smallest shift from gym culture to yoga.

Iyengar

Christened "the Michelangelo of Yoga" by the BBC, Iyengar is the founder of the famous school and, aged 88, is still teaching in Pune, south India. His book Light on Yoga was first published in 1966 and continues to inspire students all over the world.

Viniyoga

Krishnamacharya broke all sorts of social taboos when he opened his yoga school in Mysore in the 1930s. He was still teaching at the age of 101. His son, TKY Desikachar, carries on his work, with great emphasis on the individual and the belief that yoga must be tailored to fit the person and not the other way round.

Scaravelli

Vanda Scaravelli was in the privileged position of being able to study with many gurus. She was a close friend of Krishnamurti, a pupil of Iyengar and she later worked with Desikachar. She went on to develop her own technique which owes much more to breathing and to "the song of the body" than most other systems.

Sivananda yoga

Swami Sivanada Sarasawi was born in Tamil Nadu in southern India. He founded an ashram in 1948. Sivananda is based on the gurukula system. Guru means "teacher" and "kula" means home. Students would arrive at the age of eight and study at the ashram (home) for 12 years. The contemporary model of this is somewhat truncated: students arrive for an intensive four-week programme to live, work and study with teachers and students, leading a yogic lifestyle including a vegetarian diet. The classes are based on 12 basic asanas.

Bikram yoga

Bikram Choudry was born in 1945 and gained the title of national yoga champion of India at 12. After a weightlifting accident at 20, he was told he would never walk again. He created a set of postures to restore his own health, using a heated environment to encourage sweating and stretching without injury. He and his wife now teach this method to others. He has moved to Los Angeles, where his nine-week training programme and method of franchising have made him hugely wealthy; he claims to have pioneered the most successful system of yoga ever.