Body, mind and spirit? Towards an analysis of the practice of yoga

This article presents an initial analysis of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, a variety of 'modern postural yoga'. The article theorizes the embodied experience of (a) over bar sana ('yoga postures'), drawing on ethnographic research with Western practitioners in India and Australia and on the author's own practice. Building on phenomenological and cultural theories of embodiment, it is suggested that the experience of yoga practitioners has particular somatic foundations, and that this somatic basis helps explain the cross-cultural effectiveness of yoga.