Yoga: Knoxville, TN

Yoga is flourishing now even in the conservative South, with studios popping up everywhere offering enough different yoga classes to make the head spin. That is certainly the case for yoga in Knoxville, TN.

This can be great news if you've been practicing yoga for some time and you're interested in trying out different styles of yoga practice.

If you're new to yoga in Knoxville, TN, however, so many choices can lead to confusion over where to begin. One false start could end your interest in yoga forever.

Knowing beforehand what you'd like to get out of your yoga class coupled with an idea of what the different yoga styles have to offer will likely lead to a very positive experience of yoga.

Here are concise descriptions of the different styles of yoga in Knoxville currently. To find a specific studio where your preferred styles are offered, simply do a web search on Google or the search engine of your choice.

Yoga Knoxville, TN: Styles and descriptions follow.

Anusara Yoga: Anusara blends attention to details of alignment with opening the heart.

Ashtanga Yoga: Ashtanga is one of the more athletic forms of yoga, emphasizing movement through a prescribed series of postures.

Children's Yoga: Your child can stay flexible and grow strong, develop concentration and total balancing while 'playing' at yoga class. Animal poses are always a hit.

Hatha yoga: Hatha literally means 'forceful,' and on another level it means 'Sun-Moon,' meaning the union of opposites. In this country, hatha yoga has unfortunately come to mean generic gentle yoga, which is not at all how hatha was meant to be practiced. There's nothing wrong with gentle yoga, of course.

Hot yoga: Bikram Choudhury, yoga teacher to the stars, was the first to make hot yoga popular (and controversial) in the United States with his eponymous Bikram Yoga. Practicing yoga in a heated room increases flexibility, thus preventing injury. It also releases toxins from the body.

Iyengar yoga: Iyengar yoga emphasizes precise alignment of the body while holding postures.

Kripalu Yoga: Kripalu Yoga integrates yoga postures and breathing with meditation, making it as much an inward experience as it is an outward exercise. Classes range from gentle to vigorous in level of exertion.

Kundalini Yoga: Kundalini Yoga is an intense combination of purifying, energetic movements with breathing and chanting to awaken energy centers called chakras and clear away blockages in the energy body.

Restorative Yoga: Restorative yoga is a very gentle practice. Participants use props to support them in the poses, getting the energetic and opening benefits of the postures without exerting much force.

Prenatal and Momma-Baby yoga: Yoga can enhance the pregnancy experience, help a healthy birth and keep mom and baby in shape afterwards.

Vinyasa yoga: Vinyasa yoga (also called flow and power yoga) is the movement from one posture to the next, each movement connected by the inhalation or exhalation of the breath. Usually the flow is based on the sun salutation and the pace of movement between poses is fairly fast, but that is not always the case.

Yin Yoga: Yin Yoga targets the connective tissue – tendons, ligaments, and cartilage – for increased flexibility. Postures tend to be held for longer periods as a restorative technique. Yin yoga emphasizes grounding, as opposed to more energetic 'yang' styles of yoga, like Ashtanga, for instance.

Every student has an opinion of what the best yoga in Knoxville, TN is because every student is looking to get something slightly different out of the experience. Try out a few different teachers and classes, and you'll soon have a favorite of your own.