Modern yoga includes several schools whose differences concern much more than a list of postures. Some place alignment and the details of form at the centre of teaching. Others connect posture through movement and breath, or emphasise adaptation to the individual. Meditation, devotion and philosophical study remain part of the broader field. A lineage describes a connection through teaching, but it does not imply that every branch has the same method or purpose.
Yoga itself is a group of physical, mental and spiritual disciplines with origins in India and a place in Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions. Modern forms carry parts of that inheritance into different settings. A reference to schools is most useful when it identifies their stated emphases and historical connections. This guide provides no teacher directory or contact details, and offers no classes or training.
Modern yoga is a field of several forms
The Wikipedia article on modern yoga describes a wide range of practices, including philosophy, postural exercise, devotion and tantra-based approaches. It stresses yoga's international character and exchanges between cultures. The source also describes a distinction between early presentations of yoga to Western audiences and the later growth of postural yoga. Modern yoga therefore has more than a single story of unchanged practices moving from place to place.
This variety gives a useful context for school names. A shared connection to hatha yoga does not make every style identical, and a different emphasis does not mean a complete break with older traditions. Looking at philosophy, posture, breath and meditation separately can clarify what a school includes. It also keeps the history broader than the visible shapes most often associated with yoga as exercise.
Krishnamacharya and a branching history
Wikipedia's article on Tirumalai Krishnamacharya describes him as an Indian yoga teacher and scholar whose work influenced modern postural yoga. It associates him with vinyasa, understood as combining breathing and movement, and with teaching adapted to the individual. His students included figures who developed different approaches to yoga. This makes his place in a lineage useful for understanding connections among schools, rather than treating him as the source of a single uniform method.
Several branches linked to his teaching place different weight on precision, linked movement or individual adaptation. Their common background does not erase those differences. A family tree of teaching can show who studied with whom, but a description of a method must also say what it emphasises. Both kinds of information belong in a careful account of modern yoga.
Iyengar Yoga: detail, alignment and props
The Wikipedia article on Iyengar Yoga identifies B. K. S. Iyengar as the developer of this form of yoga as exercise. It describes attention to detail, precision and alignment in asana. Props such as belts, blocks and blankets have a place in the method as aids to the postures. These are descriptions of its teaching approach, rather than a claim that a particular style is suitable for every person.
Iyengar was a student of Krishnamacharya and an author on yoga practice and philosophy. In the style associated with his name, the arrangement and relationship of bodily parts are given close attention. The use of props is part of that attention to form. A description of alignment can explain a school's emphasis without becoming an instruction to perform a posture. The modern bookshelf page considers the written presentation of this approach in Light on Yoga.
Ashtanga vinyasa: linked movement and breath
Wikipedia's article on Ashtanga vinyasa yoga describes a postural system in which asanas are connected through flowing movements called vinyasas, with movement synchronised to breath. It has organised series of postures and a Mysore-style approach to teaching, where students practise material they know at their own pace with individual instruction. This is a description of the system, not a sequence to follow.
The school name needs context because ashtanga also refers to the classical limbs in the Yoga Sutras. The modern vinyasa system and that philosophical framework should not be treated as identical simply because the word is shared. The account of Ashtanga from Mysore to Britain looks more closely at the system and its teaching setting. Here its main point of comparison is the relationship between breath, movement and a learned series.
Viniyoga and individual adaptation
The Wikipedia article on T. K. V. Desikachar describes him as Krishnamacharya's son and a student of his teaching. The approach he developed was initially called Viniyoga; he later asked that it be called yoga without a special label. The source connects the term Viniyoga with the Yoga Sutras. The change of name is useful context when a reader encounters it as a fixed style label.
Read beside Krishnamacharya's emphasis on teaching appropriate to the individual, this branch highlights another question within modern yoga: how a practice is related to the person learning it. A historical description of adaptation is not a judgement about which method is best. It is a way to distinguish a teaching emphasis from those of a fixed series or a closely specified bodily form, while recognising their shared background.
Sivananda: yoga and Vedanta
Wikipedia's article on Sivananda Saraswati describes a Hindu spiritual teacher and proponent of Vedanta. He wrote on yoga and Vedanta and established Sivananda Ashram on the bank of the Ganges near Rishikesh. These facts place his teaching in a religious and contemplative setting. They also point toward a strand of modern yoga in which philosophical study belongs beside practice.
That emphasis broadens a comparison concerned only with posture. The word school can refer to a wider body of teaching, not simply a way of arranging asanas. Religious ideas, written works and contemplative aims can be central to its identity. The guide to Rishikesh describes the town and the role of ashrams in its yoga setting, without providing travel or practice recommendations.
The Bihar School and Kundalini yoga
The Wikipedia article on the Bihar School of Yoga places the school in Munger, Bihar. It describes teaching that includes asana, breath practice, withdrawal of the senses, concentration and meditation. Its philosophical range includes Raja Yoga, knowledge, devotion, action, tantra, Samkhya and Vedanta. This is another example of a school whose account of yoga extends beyond posture alone.
Wikipedia's article on Kundalini yoga describes a school influenced by Shaktism and tantric traditions. Its account brings devotion and chanting into relation with meditation, and may include hatha practices. Kundalini is understood within these traditions through the language of spiritual energy. Naming this focus explains the school without presenting its religious aims as experiences that a reader can expect.
A coordinating body in Britain
The Wikipedia article on the British Wheel of Yoga describes a coordinating body for yoga groups in Britain that welcomed different schools of thought. It also describes teacher training and a separate qualifications body concerned with accreditation. An organisation with that role is different from a lineage tracing a particular method through teachers. Keeping these roles distinct gives a clearer account of how modern yoga is taught and organised.
Schools, lineages and coordinating bodies are related parts of the same broad field, but each answers a different question. A lineage concerns the transmission of teaching; a school describes its methods and emphasis; a coordinating body concerns organisation and standards. Attending to those distinctions allows comparison without ranking traditions or turning a reference guide into a directory.