The eleven yoga styles, honestly described

Every studio timetable assumes you already know the difference between vinyasa and hatha, between yin and restorative, between a led class and a Mysore room. Almost nobody does. Here is the plain version.

Ashtanga is a fixed sequence, practised in the same order every time. In a Mysore room you do it yourself, from memory, while the teacher moves around the room adjusting people. It is repetitive on purpose: the sequence stops being the thing you are thinking about, and something else becomes available.

Vinyasa borrows Ashtanga's breath-linked movement but throws out the fixed order. A good vinyasa teacher builds towards something; a poor one simply keeps you moving. Ask what the class is working on. If there is an answer, it is probably a good class.

Hatha, in the modern timetable sense, usually means slower, held postures with less flowing between them. Classical hatha is a much larger thing — a whole system that includes breath, cleansing practices and meditation, of which posture is a small part.

Iyengar is precision and props: belts, blocks, chairs, walls. It looks static and is anything but. It is the style most likely to help if you are working around an injury, and the style most likely to tell you your knee is not where you think it is.

Yin holds passive floor postures for three to five minutes to load connective tissue rather than muscle. Restorative looks similar but has the opposite intention — it props you up so completely that nothing loads at all. Yin is uncomfortable. Restorative should not be.

Kundalini uses repetitive movement, breath patterns and sound rather than posture shapes. It is the most polarising style on any timetable and the one people most often either abandon in the first ten minutes or practise for thirty years.

Prenatal is not a gentler version of a general class. It is a differently sequenced practice built around a body whose ligaments, balance and blood volume are all changing month to month. Take the specific class.

The practical advice: try three teachers of one style before you decide the style is not for you. Teachers vary far more than styles do.

Prenatal practice is differently sequenced for good physiological reasons — please consult your doctor or midwife before practising while pregnant.