Are We Teaching the Right Sanskrit in Yoga Teacher Trainings?

Many Yoga Teacher Trainings include some Sanskrit. Often this begins (and sometimes ends) with the names of postures (āsanas.) Adho Mukha Śvānāsana. Vīrabhadrāsana. Utkatāsana. These words can feel impressive and unfamiliar at first, and learning them can certainly deepen a teacher’s confidence in the classroom.

However, when we pause to ask what Sanskrit is really offering the practice of yoga, the answer goes far beyond posture names.

The heart of yoga lives in its philosophical vocabulary. Words like dharma, karma, śraddhā, vairāgya, and abhyāsa carry depths of meaning. They appear in texts such as the Yoga Sūtras, the Bhagavad Gītā, and many other teachings that form the foundation of yoga. These terms completely shape how we understand practice and transformation. Without them, we risk reducing yoga to a purely physical discipline.

Posture names are useful. They connect us to tradition and give us a shared language in the studio. However, philosophical Sanskrit gives us the guidance for the inner landscape that yoga is designed to explore.

So perhaps the question is not whether one is more important than the other, but where our emphasis should lie. If Yoga Teacher Trainings devoted as much attention to the language of yoga philosophy as they do to the names of poses, teachers would leave with a richer understanding of the tradition they are sharing.

Ultimately, that understanding is what allows yoga to remain what it has always been: a path of self discovery and liberation.