Is the yoga you do at the local gym actually yoga?

Now it's totally fair if you'd expect me, of all people, to have strong views on this question. I teach traditional hatha yoga (as best I can). I'm fiercely protective of the culture and the tradition. I'm the one forever banging on about Shiva as the first yogi, about what the story of Devi (the first student of yoga), can teach us, about the legacy of Krishnamacharya and why it matters so much. So the easy move for me, the one that would get a lot of nods, is to tell you that the fancy gym yoga, the jumpy show-off power vinyasa stuff with the loud music and the bright lights and the choreographed flows, isn't really yoga at all.

And some of you will be surprised to hear that I think it is yoga and has an important and strong place under the bigger yogic umbrella. We got into this on the training at the weekend.

The people who say it isn't Yoga usually point to the Yoga Sutras, where the author Patanjali defines yoga as stillness of mind, and says the posture should be steady and comfortable. So, they argue, yoga is meant to be still and meditative, not jumpy and loud and over the top. I understand the argument completely. I just don't agree with it. And that's a big difference.

Because when they talk about stillness of mind, about steady and comfortable, they're describing the destination, not the practice. And those are two separate things. Yoga has always been understood as both the journey and the destination (by the great Jaideva Singh specifically). Yoga is both the means and the end.

So if someone walks into a gym and does the loud, flowy, show-off and over choreographed yoga, and it turns out to be that persons first step into reconnecting with themselves, if it helps them breathe better, move better, feel a bit more like who they are, then that is yoga to me. What comes after that first step is completely organic to them, and nobody gets to stand on the sidelines and tell them it isn't yoga.

In 2026, everyone wants to tell you that what you're doing is wrong 😑. That the yoga you do isn't the "real" thing. The modern yogi loves a high horse. Most of the time people say this stuff just to sound controversial and feed the algorithm. But, I'm not going to do that because i'm not that guy and I genuinely don't agree with it.

Nobody arrives at the deeper stuff in yoga by starting with the deeper stuff 🙃. Every serious practitioner I know, myself included, walked in through a door that the purists would turn their head at. Yoga in a gym studio. But there is no such thing as a worthy beginning. Shiva (the 1st yoga) says to Devi that all you need is to be willing. And nothing else.

So if you're coming to class, if you're moving and breathing, to me, you're doing all right. Just keep going. A deeper sense of self will happen organically through the physical practice and in its own time. And for me, that's all yoga needs to be.

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Namaskar - Eternal Seeker

Zahir Akram

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References 1. Goutham S, Bhargav H, Holla B, Mahadevan J, Nagendra RP, Jasti N, Narasimha VL, Mehta UM, Varambally S, Venkatasubramanian G, Chand P, Gangadhar BN, Hill KP, Keshavan M, Murthy P. Yoga for Opioid Withdrawal and Autonomic Regulation: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online 7 January 2026. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2843424 Free full text (PubMed Central): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12780978/ (Study design, 59 participants, 30 yoga and 29 control, ten 45-minute sessions over 14 days, median recovery of 5 vs 9 days, improvements in heart rate variability, anxiety, sleep and pain.) 2. Powell A. Yoga can help cut severe, initial opioid-withdrawal period in half, study finds. Harvard Gazette, 24 February 2026. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/02/yoga-can-help-cut-severe-initial-opioid-withdrawal-period-in-half-study-finds/ (Group sessions, the specific practices used, and comments from the Harvard researchers.) 3. Yoga accelerates opioid withdrawal recovery. Healio, 23 January 2026. https://www.healio.com/news/psychiatry/20260123/yoga-accelerates-opioid-withdrawal-recovery (Parasympathetic activity accounting for 23% of the effect.) 4. Jha S. Drug withdrawal takes 9 days, yoga brings it down to 5: NIMHANS study. The South First, 16 February 2026. https://thesouthfirst.com/health/drug-withdrawal-takes-9-days-yoga-brings-it-down-to-5-nimhans-study/ (Stress markers rising briefly during breathing practice, then improving at rest by day 15.) 5. Gratzer D. Reading of the Week: Yoga for Opioid Withdrawal? The New JAMA Psych Paper. 29 January 2026. https://davidgratzer.com/reading-of-the-week/reading-of-the-week-yoga-for-opioid-withdrawal-the-new-jama-psych-paper-also-maois-history-and-ai-associated-psychosis/ (Average age of 25.6, and the study's limitations: small sample and no active control group.)