As prac­ticed here in the United States, yoga is a rel­a­tively recent phe­nom­e­non and is quickly tak­ing on its own char­ac­ter­is­tics. In most cases, it is hatha yoga, which refers to the phys­i­cal poses.

Three Influ­en­tial Lin­eages and One Source

Krish­na­macharya

was the root of con­tem­po­rary hatha yoga

T.K.V. Desikachar

• Krish­na­macharya Yoga Mandi­ram:  As Krishnamacharya’s son, Deski­achar has car­ried on the tra­di­tion  Iyen­gar and Pat­tabhi Jois (See below). World of Yoga. The Heart of Yoga is the defin­ing text of this tra­di­tion. Krish­na­macharya Heal­ing and Yoga Foun­da­tion KHYF
• Amer­i­can followers:
• Gary Kraftsow’s Amer­i­can Viniyoga Insti­tute in Maui, Hawaii
• Larry Payne, MD, and Samata Inter­na­tional
• Mark Whitwell’s Heart of Yoga Cal­i­for­nia studio
• Leslie Kaminoff’s Breath­ing Project

B.K.S. Iyengar

• Iyen­gar Yoga Resources and Forum ::: Iyen­gar Yoga National Asso­ci­a­tion of the United States (IYNAUS)::: IyengarYoga.org B.K.S. Iyen­gar has been a highly influ­en­tial advo­cate of hatha yoga. His book Light on Yoga led many to a deeper under­stand­ing of yoga.
• Judith Han­son Lasater: In addi­tion to her books, she has posted some addi­tional writ­ing.

 Pat­tabhi Jois

• Ash­tanga Yoga Research Insti­tute: Pat­tabhi Jois is another influ­en­tial force in mod­ern yoga. Yoga Mala is his guide through the Sun Salu­ta­tion and the 42 asanas that form the core of the Ash­tanga sys­tem. Ash­tanga Yoga ::: Ash­tanga Yoga.info ::: AshtangaChola.de Also see Terry Slade’s Ash­tanga Links and Ashtanga.net blogs

• Saraswathi – Pat­tabhi Jois’s daughter
• Manu – Pat­tabhi Jois’s son who teaches around the world.
• Sharath – son of Saraswathi and Jois’s teach­ing assistant.
• Beryl Ben­der Birch and her Hard and Soft Ash­tanga Yoga Insti­tute are at Power Yoga. She has sev­eral well-​​regarded books and is pub­lished reg­u­larly in Yoga Jour­nal.
• Richard Freeman’s Yoga Workshop

Other Indian Currents

• Inte­gral Yoga – Satchi­dananda Ashram (bet­ter known as Yogav­ille, VA) ::: Inte­gral Yoga Insti­tute of New York ::: San Fran­cisco – Sri Swami Satchi­dananda was the guru who blessed the Wood­stock Fes­ti­val in 1969. He passed on in 2002.
• Kri­palu: both a yoga retreat/​center in Mass­a­chu­setts and a spe­cific style of yoga that orig­i­nated in the center.
• Bikram Choud­hury: now infa­mous because of his efforts to copy­write a sequence of yoga posi­tions and force roy­alty pay­ments, but his busi­ness model is still a pop­u­lar approach: the room is headed to 104 degrees and humid. The pro­gram con­sists of a series of 26 asanas, per­formed in the same sequence.
• Kun­dalini yoga was brought to the States by Yogi Bha­jan in 1969. It focuses on the con­trolled release of Kun­dalini energy. But I can’t seem to find a site that really cen­tral­izes the school. Kun­dalini and 3H0 ::: Sri Swami Sivanandaji
• Satyananda Yoga: This lin­eage was founded by Swami Satyananda Saraswati, who died in Decem­ber 2009, and rep­re­sents an Indian-​​focused sprir­i­tual move­ment. What sets it apart is a col­lec­tion of lit­er­a­ture on all aspects of yoga and inter­pret­ing the clas­sic texts. It is also known as the Bihar School of  Yoga.   YogaV­i­sion :::  Aus­tralian site ::: Atma Cen­ter (USA) ::: Yoga Acad­emy of North Amer­ica ::: Yoga Mag­a­zine
• Swami Vivekananda: a major his­tor­i­cal fig­ure in India and the West (bio and bio of the Ramakr­ishna Vedanta Soci­ety of Boston). Vivakanada.net ::: RamaKr­is­han Math

Amer­i­can Lineages

Clas­sic Texts

As you might guess, there are many online copies of the clas­si­cal yogic texts, as well as excel­lent print ver­sions. Experts devote life times to under­stand­ing them.

• The Gheranda Samhita trans­lated by James Mallinson and Hatha Yoga Pradipika trans­lated by Brian Dana Akers
• Hatha Yoga Pradipika trans­lated by Major Basu
• Yoga Sutras trans­lated into mul­ti­ple languages
• Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras trans­lated by Swami Venkatesanananda
• Yoga Sutras of Patan­jali trans­lated by BonGiovanni

Prac­ti­tion­ers

Indi­vid­ual yoga instruc­tors or their stu­dios have addi­tional con­tent that might be of use to any­one learn­ing yoga.

• Kelly McGo­ni­gal: Open Mind Open Body (old) ::: New per­sonal site and point­ers to other materials
• Erich Schiffmann’s Mov­ing Into Still­ness has a chap­ter of his book and other online resources. Check out his forum.
• Clau­dia Cum­mings.
• Bryan Kest’s Power Yoga has a South­ern Cal­i­for­nia stu­dio and a line of videos
• Cyndi Lee’s OmYoga stu­dio is located in NY City. She writes fre­quently in Shamb­hala Sun, the Bud­dhist quar­terly. She has also pub­lished sev­eral books.
• Amy Wein­traub wrote Yoga for Depres­sion: A Com­pas­sion­ate Guide to Relieve Suf­fer­ing Through Yoga and a CD, Breathe to Beat the Blues, explain­ing pranayama applied to mood dis­or­ders. Don’t be mis­led by the depres­sion tag — the book is really about how yoga gen­er­ates vital­ity in our exis­tence, taps into energy and alle­vi­ates human suf­fer­ing. Amy has also set up an online forum.
• Baron Bap­tiste, charis­matic and intense as a teacher, is based in Boston, but teaches all over the coun­try and the world. Power vinyasa yoga is what he calls his style.
• Dar­ren Main, an SF teacher who has writ­ten sev­eral inter­est­ing books, includ­ing Yoga & the Path of the Urban Mys­tic. His site has a lot of insight.