The historical origins of modern transnational postural yoga are not what they seem at first glance. As a part of my process of seeking clarity, I have developed a summary of chapters 2-5 of the text "Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton." Note, the page number references are not all accurate.

In India in the seventeenth century, it was common to find wandering ascetics. Some of them were Hindu Shaivite Hatha yogins. These individuals were practicing bodily training sometimes for spiritual purposes, sometimes to condition themselves for success in their arduous mendicant lifestyle, and sometimes as a form of militia training as they often practiced trade-soldiering in exchange for pay (40).

During European colonial expansion, these wandering ascetics offended the Europeans' cultural sensibilities and were disruptive to the European political and economic goals. Bans and restrictions were placed on their activities, leading these groups to lose their trade and instead move into street showmanship and begging for money, which was a move seen negatively by both the Europeans and more Orthodox, often Vaisnava, Hindus (40). A strong tie in the mind of the British was formed between contortionism vaudeville and the asana poses of the yogi - remarkable similarities between the two are seen in the poses of BKS Iyengar and the contortionist, possibly due to both parties coming across similar physical limitations of the human body (56). A strong medicalization of Hatha yoga also began to occur, with both European and Indian practitioners and scientists investigating its anatomic validity and scientifically verifiable health benefits (50). These investigations can be traced now to the 21st century where it is not uncommon for Western medical doctors to recommend yoga practices to their patients.

In the 1800-1900s, Physical Culture gained immense popularity throughout Europe. New forms of exercises were implemented in schools, the military, and the YMCA. Practices such as movement cure, harmonial gymnastics, calisthenics, muscular Christianity and bodybuilding were formulated, some of these being quasi-religious systems and many of which intended their somatic practices to be a vehicle for instilling Western values within their practitioners (84-89). The English in the early 1800's were motivated to overcome their own "deterioration" by means of Physical Culture - and during their colonial rule, they sought to do the same for the Indian people. British-Indian facilities used Physical Culture, sometimes merged with indigenous practices like yoga, as a way to "educate" Indians and help them out of their "effeminacy" and their "idolatrous and superstitious" religious practices through a doctrine of "fulfillment" (42, 91 & 94). There was eugenicist Lamarckian and Social Darwinian motivated ideology encouraging both Europeans and Indians to improve themselves to improve their children and to raise the level of race overall as the form of highest service to the state - a collective aim of transgenerational perfection (98).

In the pre-independence era, Indian people began to reject the treatment of the British, and a new synthesis of both Western Physical Culture and traditional Indian bodily training sprung up. "Anandamath," a 1880's novel, helped inspire militant resistance against British rule in favor of a united Sanatana-dharma which united the Vaisnava, Shaivite, and Shakta (99). Arala Debi Ghosal, 1905 extremist leader and campaigner for militant nationalistic physical culture, trained men with the said aim to protect women against molestation by British soldiers and to bring forth "nationalist warrior hero" based on Indian history and myth (99-100). Tiruka masqueraded as an itinerant guru, traveling India in 1930s, in order to assimilate exercise & combat techniques from teachers including Rishikesh, the creator of "suryanamaskar sequence," and Yogananda (all transnational modern yoga gurus), and then disseminated these teachings to future freedom fighters under the name of "Yoga" (103-104). Traditional disciplines like wrestling, stave (lathi), kabaddi, and indigenous martial arts were integrated with one another (111) and reconstruction of the spirit of violent sannyasin led to continued association of hatha yoga with martial exercise and militant ascetic (105). Yoga in a certain milieu became an alibi for training a violent, militant resistance. It was a signifier of insurrection (103). Yoga as a household word came to mean to train oneself as "guerrilla." "Receptivity to foreign (esp. British) influences, combined with aggressive assertion of superiority of Indian method is a common trope across physical culture and modern Hatha yoga" (108). Rammoorthi 1923, such systems "have their origins in India." Krishnamacharya's asana practice is a continued experiment of merging Western physical culture with Indian physical practices.