Patanjali’s writ­ing also became the basis for a sys­tem referred to as “Ash­tanga Yoga” (“Eight-Limbed Yoga”). This eight-limbed con­cept is a core char­ac­ter­is­tic of prac­ti­cally every Raja yoga vari­a­tion taught today. The Eight Limbs are:

1. Yama (The five “absten­tions”): non-violence, non-lying, non-covetousness, non-sensuality, and non-possessiveness.
2. Niyama (The five “obser­vances”): purity, con­tent­ment, aus­ter­ity, study, and sur­ren­der to god.
3. Asana: Lit­er­ally means “seat”, and in Patanjali’s Sutras refers to the seated posi­tion used for med­i­ta­tion. Asanas are the phys­i­cal poses of Yoga.

Some Yoga empha­sizes the Phys­i­cal Prac­tice and Poses.

4. Pranayama (“Sus­pend­ing Breath”): Prana, breath, “āyama”, to restrain or stop. Also inter­preted as con­trol of the life force.

Lotus Orbit Exer­cise dur­ing Z-STICK DRILLS. This builds the inner winds. Your chi. Ki. Prana. life­force. Get it?

5. Pratya­hara (“Abstrac­tion”): With­drawal of the sense organs from exter­nal objects.
6. Dha­rana (“Con­cen­tra­tion”): Fix­ing the atten­tion on a sin­gle object.
7. Dhyana (“Med­i­ta­tion”): Intense con­tem­pla­tion of the nature of the object of med­i­ta­tion.
8. Samadhi (“Lib­er­a­tion”): merg­ing con­scious­ness with the object of meditation.