What is Power Yoga?

Well, hello, June. We’re so close to complete freedom that we felt the need to bring you the freest of yoga styles: Power Yoga. Power Yoga has been in our schedule for a long time, but it’s not that old. Today, we’ll talk about what Power Yoga is, its benefits and what Power Yoga classes are like. 

Let’s take a look. 

What is Power Yoga? 

Power Yoga is a style that Beryl Bender Birch and Bryan Kest coined in the late 1980s. 

It became pretty popular during the 90s, and it’s rooted in –surprise, surprise– the Ashtanga series. It was a way for Beryl and Bryan to make what they had learned from Sri K. Pattabhi more accessible to Western students.
They called it Power Yoga to differentiate it from gentle yoga, which many people associated with yoga. Therefore, this was a way to let practitioners know it was serious business and you would work hard in class. 

What are the Benefits of Power Yoga?

Power Yoga provides benefits to your physical and mental health. Because Power Yoga is quite fast-paced and gets your heart rate up, it’s excellent for your cardiovascular health. It gets your blood pumping, your oxygen flowing and improves your stamina! 

While Vinyasa Yoga is more focused on the breath, Power Yoga focuses on boosting muscle strength and endurance. If you’ve ever been asked to hold a chair pose for several breaths, you know what we’re talking about. Power Yoga will help you build strength in your body.

Transitioning from pose to pose smoothly, balancing on one leg or on your hands, will help you with coordination and make you more agile.

We’ve mentioned before how yoga helps you reduce stress, but Power Yoga might be one of the best ways to ‘burn off’ the stress and frustrations of the day. You can leave everything on the mat and walk out feeling calm and serene. 

What are Power Yoga classes like?

Here’s the thing: at the beginning, Power Yoga was a modified Ashtanga. But then it became ‘anything and everything’. Each teacher will teach something slightly different and will have a different focus. It’s a very freeing style and everyone will have a different approach. So, basically, you can expect anything, except it being gentle and restorative. 

Take it from Bryan Kest, one of the creators:|
‘Power Yoga is directed at creating the highest level of energy, vitality, and freedom. The only way to do this is to work with yourself, not against yourself. By working hard sensitively, we create an environment that’s healing and that honours each individual, an environment that respects our boundaries and works within him or her. In this way, we create an atmosphere conducive to natural expansion and growth. We’re not interested in pushing past our edge to get to a place where we’ve been brainwashed into thinking we need to be in order to have happiness!’

When can you practice with us? 

We hold Power Yoga classes in each one of our studios in London. Online, you can find plenty of classes via MoreYoga Wellness TV. 

Feel free to have a peek at our In-Studio Classes & MoreYoga Wellness TV Programme.