Body & beauty

A guide to vinyasa flow

The translation of vinyasa from Sanskrit is ‘connection’, and for this style of yoga, connection is between movement and breath.

You won’t be holding complicated stretches in this class, instead you’ll almost certainly start by performing sun salutations, a flow of movement which wakes up the body.

The instructor will move you through different poses without stopping for particularly long in any of them. This is why this type of yoga is often called ‘flow’, and it’s a bit of a better workout than some other types which focus more on breathing, meditation and relaxation. It’s strengthening for the body, and classes are often marked as being beginner, intermediate or advanced.

The best thing is, there are not strict rules to this style, so if you like a bit of unpredictability and not holding poses for ages at a time, it’s probably for you. Vinyasa classes can be pretty different from one another, depending on the teacher, so if at first you don’t love it, perhaps switch to a different teacher.