How Many Asanas in Yoga

Yoga is an incredible art form, and as great as it is, there are a lot of people that have no idea about some of the basic concepts and terminologies found within the art of yoga. One of the most important things to keep in mind are asanas. An asana in yoga a very proper way of referencing a seated pose. They are important to keep in mind because if you’re brand new to the hobby, you’re going to need to learn these asanas so you can maximize your ability to perform at the highest level possible. if you’re an experienced yogi, then you should be familiar with most of the asanas, but even if you aren’t, here is a quick refresher.

Asanas Versus Poses

When people think of yoga, they often refer to the positions one must undertake during a flow to be a “position.” While in the colloquial sense this is perfectly fine, the truth is that more advanced and knowledgeable practitioners refer to them as poses rather than positions. This is important to note because there are other “positions” that are more specifically referred to as asanas. Asanas are essentially sitting positions that are sustained for a very long period of time, or sometimes, shorter periods of time.

They serve a very important purpose in the grand scheme of yoga because many asanas are designed to address specific ailments. For example, some asanas are there to prevent diabetes, poor posture, disease, and a myriad of other issues, some serious, some innocuous. Regardless, having knowledge of the asanas can go a long way in improving one’s health, in addition to their ability to partake in yoga.

How Many Asanas Are There?

The great thing about asanas is that practitioners, both advanced and novice, are constantly coming up with new asanas to use for themselves in addition to other people whom they know. However, if you know the history of yoga, you’d know that the asanas go back as far as hundreds upon hundreds of years ago when the original yoga texts were first formed. Back then, there was known to be 84 different classical asanas. These had the purpose of giving practitioners a baseline of almost 100 positions that they could master, and eventually, having mastered these positions, they would achieve alignment or enlightenment, both physically and mentally.

While mastering many of these asanas could take a while, it is something that can be done with enough hard work.