When we think about yoga, a particular image often comes to mind: a fit person holding an impressive posture, perhaps in an equally striking location. It is an understandable association. Physical postures are the part of yoga we see most often in the media.
But they represent only one part of a much wider tradition.
More than one definition
The texts that have shaped the various traditions of yoga do not offer a single definition of what yoga is. They approach it in different ways: through the mind and attention, through action and conduct, through contemplation, and through practices involving the body and breath.
Across these approaches, physical postures are only one part of yoga.
“Posture has a place, but it is not the whole practice.”
In Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras, posture is one element within an eight-part system that also includes ethical conduct, personal observances, breath regulation, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation, and absorption.
Later haṭha yoga traditions gave greater attention to the body, but posture still formed part of a broader practice involving the breath and other methods of working with body and mind.
The Bhagavad Gītā approaches yoga differently again, associating it with qualities such as steadiness in changing circumstances and skilfulness in action.
These texts come from different periods and traditions, but together they give us a considerably broader picture of yoga than physical exercise alone. Yoga is concerned not only with what the body can do, but also with how we direct attention, respond to experience, and act within the circumstances of our lives.
When the modern image of yoga becomes a barrier
The emphasis on physical performance can make people assume that yoga is not for them, or narrow their understanding of yoga to postures alone.
Perhaps your body does not move in the way the pictures suggest. You may live with pain, fatigue, or physical limitations. A demanding movement practice may leave you depleted rather than restored.
None of this necessarily excludes you from yoga.
Postures are tools. Flexibility is not a requirement for participation, nor is the ability to perform increasingly difficult poses a measure of progress.
Depending on the person, practice may begin with movement, but it may equally begin with the breath, relaxation, attention, meditation, or reflection.
Why this matters in yoga therapy
Yoga therapy draws from this broader understanding of yoga.
Someone living with fatigue may need a different emphasis from someone whose primary difficulty is mobility. A person experiencing sustained stress may need another starting point altogether.
Not every aspect of yoga needs to be used, and the aim is not to assemble as many techniques as possible. The practice is selected according to the person, their circumstances, and the goal they are working towards.
Seen this way, yoga becomes less about what a practice looks like from the outside and more about what happens through practising it: whether we become more aware of our patterns, whether attention becomes steadier, and whether we can respond to experience with greater choice.
Physical practice remains valuable, but it is one doorway into a much larger field. It is this wider field that yoga therapy draws upon.