why in haṭha yoga prāṇāyāma is important?

and how modern yoga forgot about it!

In the classical teachings, Hatha Yoga was never about perfecting the body (āsana) - it was about refining the breath (prāṇāyāma), and through the breath, the mind.

Great Master and Professor T. Krishnamacharya - the grandfather of modern yoga - used to say: “Hatha Yoga is Prānāyāma.”

The shift from inner to outer

Yet when yoga travelled into the modern world, it changed shape. In the early twentieth century, T. Krishnamacharya was asked by the Maharaja of Mysore (South of India) to develop a system of physical culture for young boys. What began as an intelligent adaptation - weaving in traditional āsana, Indian wrestling, and gymnastics - gradually became the dominant face of yoga.

When his students carried these teachings abroad, it was the visible, athletic side that people saw and loved. Āsana photographed well. It fit the times. Prānāyāma - subtle, slow, and invisible - did not. And so, step by step, yoga’s public image became a choreography of shapes rather than a study of breath.

The quiet disappearance of prāṇāyāma

Why did this happen?

Because prānāyāma is inward. It cannot be packaged, counted, or performed. It demands personal supervision, patience, and stillness - qualities not easily sustained in a world that moves ever faster.

For many modern teachers, it was also missing from their own training. Without a living transmission, prānāyāma turned into a word on a syllabus rather than a daily discipline. The deep, alchemical work of balancing prāna and apāna - the essence of Hatha - quietly faded from the practice halls.

What we lost - and what remains

When Hatha was reduced to posture, we lost the subtle thread that connects breath, energy, and awareness. We lost the understanding that āsana is preparation, not culmination - a way to make the body steady so that the breath can flow without obstruction.

But the essence is not lost forever. Every time we turn attention back to the breath, Hatha Yoga returns. Each time we sit quietly after practice, listening to the movement of prāna, we re-enter the real laboratory of yoga.

Reclaiming the heart of Haṭha

In the old language of the yogis, Ha stands for prāna - the upward-moving life energy in our body. Tha represents apāna - the grounding, downward flow of energy. When these two forces come into balance, everything inside settles - the breath, the mind, the energy. That harmony, the union of Ha and Tha, is what Haṭha Yoga is really about.

To remember Hatha as Prānāyāma is to remember yoga as a living science of energy transformation - not exercise, but inner refinement. It’s a call to slow down. To sense the breath as the bridge between body and mind. To let movement serve stillness again.

As Krishnamacharya’s students remind us:

“Āsana is preparation. Prānāyāma is the essence. Meditation is the goal.”

When we breathe with awareness - when the breath becomes the teacher - Hatha Yoga returns to its true meaning: the meeting of prāna and apāna, effort and grace, within the stillness of the heart.