Order is the teaching
A yoga class is not a set of poses. It is an order of poses, and the order is where most of the teaching lives. Two classes can hold every posture in common and still land in different bodies and different states of mind, decided only by what came before what. The builder above is a tool, not an oracle. What follows is the thinking it runs on: the sequencing principles of published yogis, the ways a practice can be ordered, and the sources they come from, to inspire you to build your own sequence rather than borrow one.
The old name for this intelligence is vinyasa krama. T.K.V. Desikachar breaks the words apart plainly: krama is the step, and nyasa means to place, so vinyasa krama is a correctly organized course of practice in which it is not enough to take a step, the step has to be placed in the right direction. Mark Stephens, whose Yoga Sequencing is the standard modern treatment, reads it the same way and pairs it with parinamavada, the understanding that change is constant and always builds on what came just before. From those two ideas he draws the plainest rule of ordering there is: move from the simple to the complex along the path of least resistance. Both men trace the concept to Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, whose students Desikachar, Indra Devi, B.K.S. Iyengar, and Pattabhi Jois carried it into the practice most of the world now inherits.
It helps to remember where asana sits in the older map. In Patanjali’s eight limbs, posture is the third limb and breath the fourth, and the order of the limbs is itself a sequence. A steady, unstrained seat, sthira sukham asanam in Yoga Sutra 2.46, is what makes the breath quiet enough to work with, and quiet breath is what lets the senses and the mind turn inward. Read this way, an asana class is preparation. Its arc is meant to leave the body settled enough that breath, the withdrawal of the senses, and focus can actually happen. Sequencing that forgets this can build a strong body and a restless mind, which is close to the opposite of the point.
A different shape for each style
The builder does not run one template. Each style in it is ordered on its own logic. Some move as a flowing wave that climbs to a high point and comes back down, some repeat a fixed series the same way every time, and some hold a few shapes still for many minutes. Not every style builds toward a peak. Here is the shape a class takes in each of the five, and where that shape comes from. The fuller genealogy of the styles lives on the styles page.
Vinyasa: the breath-linked wave
Vinyasa links one breath to one movement and shapes the class as a wave that warms, builds, and returns to rest. Sun Salutations are its warming engine, and a chosen apex pose can give the middle a focus, though it does not have to. A class in this style centres and finds the breath, moves through Sun Salutation A and then B, builds heat in standing flows that quietly rehearse the harder work, rises to a peak if there is one, then unwinds with counterposes and seated or supine cooling before Savasana. Mark Stephens and T.K.V. Desikachar are the clearest guides to this arc.
Ashtanga Vinyasa: the set series
Ashtanga Vinyasa, the method Pattabhi Jois taught, does not resequence. It is a fixed order of poses practised the same way each time, held together by tristhana, the union of breath, bandha, and drishti. This is not the same as Ashtanga in Patanjali’s sense, the eight limbs; the studio practice borrows the name. A class runs several rounds each of Sun Salutation A and B, then the standing sequence, then the seated Primary Series with a vinyasa between poses, then backbends, the finishing sequence of inversions, and rest. The gift is the depth that comes from repeating one order for years; the caution is that a fixed series flows through the low push-up many dozens of times, so the shoulders need real care.
Yin: long holds, ordered by depth
Yin sets the flow aside. Poses are held passively on the floor for three to five minutes to reach the deep connective tissue and to practise stillness, and the order is decided by depth and duration rather than by heat. A class settles the body, then moves through a handful of held shapes that each open a different area, a hip, a fold, a gentle backbend, a twist, a side, with a slow return toward neutral between the deep ones, and ends in a long supported rest. There is no peak and no warming flow. The idea that long holds remodel fascia or move energy along meridians is traditional framing rather than settled physiology, but the practice remains a fine way to meet stiffness and stillness.
Hatha: held poses and alignment
Hatha, used today as the name for a slower, all-levels class, keeps the shape of the wave but walks it rather than flows it. Poses are held for several breaths with attention on alignment, and the slower pace leaves room to teach the shape. A class centres and warms the spine and joints, works through standing poses held with care, arrives at a main pose or two, cools with seated folds and twists, often closes with a finishing inversion such as Shoulderstand and its counterpose, and rests. The word points back to the Hatha texts, though the modern class is a broad umbrella over many lineages.
Restorative: supported and still
Restorative practice asks almost nothing of the muscles. A few fully supported shapes are held for five to ten minutes on bolsters and blankets so the nervous system can settle, and the aim is rest rather than range. A class settles in, moves slowly through a small number of supported poses, a gentle backbend over a bolster, a supported twist or fold, the legs resting up a wall, and gives a generous, supported Savasana the largest share of the time. There is no building and no heat. Judith Lasater’s work and B.K.S. Iyengar’s use of props are the ground here.