Yoga in Sweden is the practice ofyoga, whetherfor exercise or other reasons, in Sweden. The form of yoga practised in the Western world was influenced byPehr Henrik Ling's system of gymnastics. Sweden is home, too, to Europe's first yoga school, the Goswami Yoga Institute in Stockholm.
TheSwedish gymnastics pioneerPehr Henrik Ling (1776–1839) devised a system of gymnastics which, according to yoga scholarMark Singleton, shaped the development of modernyoga as exercise in the Western world.[1]
In 1946, the AustrianWalther Eidlitz (1892–1976), known as Vāmana Dāsa, moved to Sweden and taughtBhakti Yoga there for the rest of his life.[2] Yoga became more widely available in 1949 when the Indian yogi Shyam Sundar Goswami (1891–1978) visited the country for theLingiaden [sv] gymnastic competition named for Ling. Goswami founded Stockholm's Goswami Yoga Institute the same year: it was the first yoga school in Europe, and Goswami taught there for the rest of his life. His followers continue to run the institute.[2][3]
In the early 1960s Bert Yoga Jonson (also called Bert Yogson) opened his yoga studio inMalmö, also teaching inGothenburg and writing 15 books on yoga.[2][4]
In 1972,Swami Janakananda founded theKriya Yoga centreHåå Kursgård in the southern province ofSmåland.[2] In 1976, Stockholm'sSkandinavisk Yoga och Meditationsskola ("Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School") was founded.[2] It claims to be Stockholm's oldest school ofyoga as exercise, and usesHåå Kursgård as its retreat centre.[5]
Rachel Bråthén (1988- ), known as "Yoga Girl", lives and teaches on the island ofAruba in theCaribbean Sea.[6][7] Her 2015 book, also calledYoga Girl, became aNew York Times best-seller[8][9] and popularised the line "Yoga every damn day".[10][11] She helped to pioneerPaddleboard Yoga, having taught it from 2009 onwards.[12]
While yoga had a big following in the 20th century, interest in yoga has increased rapidly in the 21st century. Many Swedes state that they practice yoga, though few have read theYoga Sutras of Patanjali.[13] In 2017, yoga was Sweden's 8th most popular fitness method, and was the primary fitness activity for 12% of its women and 2% of its men.[14]
From 2012 there has been an ongoing debate in Sweden about whether yoga may be taught in schools, as religious instruction is forbidden in the state schooling system. Sweden's School Inspectorate decided in 2012 that Östermalm School in Stockholm could teach yoga as exercise. The scholar Erik af Edholm noted that since Ling's gymnastics had influenced modern yoga, the yoga now practised in Sweden was a secularised and reimported form of gymnastics.[15]
Sweden is, according toThe Wall Street Journal, an "excellent place" for yoga retreats.[16]
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