Avinyasa^[1] (Sanskrit:विन्यास,IAST:vinyāsa) is a smooth transition betweenasanas in flowing styles of modernyoga as exercise such asVinyasa Krama Yoga andAshtanga (vinyasa) yoga, especially when movement is paired with the breath.

This article containsIndic text. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The vinyasa forms of yoga used as exercise, includingPattabhi Jois's 1948Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga and its spin-off schools such asBeryl Bender Birch's 1995Power Yoga and others like Baptiste Yoga,Jivamukti Yoga, Vinyasa Flow Yoga, Power Vinyasa Yoga, andCore Strength Vinyasa Yoga, derive fromKrishnamacharya's development of a flowingaerobic style of yoga in theMysore Palace in the early 20th century.^[2][3]

According to Ashtanga yoga's official history,Krishnamacharya learned the complete system ofasanas (postures) and vinyasas (transitions) from an otherwise unknown document, theYoga Kurunta, supposedly written 5,000 years ago by Vamana Rishi; the history tells that Krishnamacharya copied it out and taught it, unmodified, to Pattabhi Jois. However, the original manuscript was supposedly destroyed by ants, and no copy survives; neither Jois nor any other of Krishnamacharya's pupils transcribed it, as would have been expected in a traditionalguru-shishya relationship. Further, Krishnamacharya "surprising[ly]"^[4] did not cite the text in his 1935Yoga Makaranda or his c. 1941Yogasanagalu.^[4] TheYogasanagalu did contain tables of asanas and vinyasas, and these are "comparable"^[5] to Jois's system, but far from being fixed as written in an ancient manuscript, Krishnamacharya's "jumping" yoga style at theMysore Palace was constantly changing, adapted to the needs of specific pupils according to their ages, constitutions (deha), vocations (vrttibheda), capabilities (sakti), and paths (marga);^[5] the approach was "experimental".^[6] In contrast, the system that Krishnamacharya taught to Jois and that became the basis of Jois's Ashtanga Yoga was fixed. This may have been because Jois had to teach at the Sanskrit Pathasala in 1933, while Krishnamacharya's other pupils were studying at his Yogasala, so he may,Mark Singleton suggests, have taught the 18-year-old Jois a simple fixed sequence suitable for a novice teacher to use with large groups of boys.^[7]Norman Sjoman notes that Krishnamacharya cited the 19th centurySritattvanidhi which documents asanas used in the Mysore Palace in his early writings; his early vinyasas developed into forms more like those of Jois, something that Sjoman takes as evidence that Krishnamacharya created rather than inherited the vinyasas: "It was not an inherited format".^[8][9]

Krishnamacharya used "vinyasa" in at least two different ways. One was ina broad sense to mean "an appropriately formulated sequence of steps (krama) for approaching a given posture".^[10] The other was a "stage in the execution of an asana". For example, inYoga Makaranda theSarvangasana sequence is introduced with the words "This has 12 vinyasas [stages]. The 8th vinyasa is the asana sthiti [the actual pose]."^[11]

In contrast,Pattabhi Jois used "vinyasa" ina narrower sense to mean "the repetitious linking movements" between the asanas of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.^[10] The Ashtanga yoga teacher Gregor Maehle explains that this flowing style "creates a movement meditation".^[12] The vinyasa sequences used in the touring demonstrations of Krishnamacharya's yoga were, according to an interview with Jois, "virtually identical to the aerobic schema" of modern Ashtanga Yoga, namely "several distinct 'series' within which each main asana is conjoined by a short, repeated, linking series of postures and jumps based on theSurya Namaskar model".^[13]

Modern vinyasa yoga such as what was taught bySharath Jois (grandson of Pattabhi Jois) coordinates the breath with the vinyasa transition movements between asanas.^[14] A particular sequence of asanas, also called a vinyasa, is used repeatedly in Ashtanga yoga classes; it involvesChaturanga Dandasana (Low Staff Pose),Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward Dog Pose) andAdho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Dog Pose) to link other asanas.^[14] Sharath Jois defines vinyasa as a system of breathing and movement.^[15]

• Trul khor

• Krishnamacharya, Tirumalai (2006) [1934].Yoga Makaranda. Translated by Lakshmi Ranganathan; Nandini Ranganathan.online
• Singleton, Mark (2010).Yoga Body : the origins of modern posture practice. Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-539534-1.OCLC 318191988.
• Sjoman, Norman E. (1999) [1996].The Yoga Tradition of the Mysore Palace (2nd ed.). Abhinav Publications.ISBN 81-7017-389-2.

• Media related toVinyasa at Wikimedia Commons

• Vinyasas

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Articles containing Sanskrit-language text
• Commons category link is on Wikidata