4 Ways to Practice Hatha Yoga as Moving Meditation

Last Updated on July 22, 2026 by Matthew Sockolov

Hatha yoga is an ancient system of work with your body and mind. This system supposes first to prepare your physical body, it’s clearing from diseases, stiffness, and weakness through performing physical exercises which are called yoga asanas. It is believed that it is hard to concentrate your mind on a sitting meditation when your body is not physically prepared for this complicated high-leveled work with your awareness.

What is meditation yoga and what is it for? Even if you only begin practicing yoga but you have a slight feeling that doing a physical form is not already enough for you, you may try something from several techniques which we call “moving meditation.” Yoga is a powerful way to investigate mindfulness, yourself, and the movement of the body. Furthermore practicing yoga before meditation can help our sitting practice.

Stepping Outside of Comfort Zone

Many people have a hard time trying new and unfamiliar things. Depending on your personality type, you may find this more difficult than most. For example, difficulty doing new and uncomfortable things is an innocent archetype’s weakness. Whether you’re learning to meditate, exercise, or be more social, it’s important to know your strengths and weaknesses and work with them in your yoga practice. Step onto the mat, even if it’s outside of your comfort zone. Yoga is not a competition, it’s a practice. Allow yourself room to grow.

Surya Namaskar

This is the most popular and accessible for everyone dynamic complex when one hatha yoga position changes another with a rhythm of breath. It can be practiced whether with a teacher or at home by yourself. There are plenty variations on a theme of Surya Namaskar which means The Sun Salutation. In yoga studios, you usually perform such complexes as a warming up of the whole body before the main practice of asanas or breathing techniques (pranayama).

Two most popular variants are the classic variants of Sivananda Yoga and Ashtanga Yoga. It is highly recommended to learn their technique under a professional guidance of an experienced certified teacher and only then to use it as an instrument at home whenever you have a time for this. You may spend 20 minutes every day doing this or any other variant of workout to keep your body tuned and to feel all the hatha yoga benefits on yourself. The meditation happens when you connect every movement with a half-cycle of your breathing – inhale and exhale.

Ashtanga Yoga

Famous method of Ashtanga Yoga practice came to us from the Mysore, a little town in the South of India, the country where was yoga originated. In the deep heart of this method lays the principle of repeating one yoga positions sequence in static-dynamic mode 6 days a week. For starting practicing this method, you come to a yoga shala at your town (the special for Ashtanga Yoga studio) and start learning the primary series from its beginning – pose by pose with an authorized teacher. This is a very efficient way of meditation in yoga – it is proved with the thousands of followers of this tradition all over the world (Madonna, Sting, and Robert Downey Jr are the popular examples of positive effects which can be obtained with this practice). When you are insistently day by day practice the same sequence of moves – they become natural for your body, and this is a good “moving” base for breathing and observation of your sensation at a physical and mental level.

Flow Yoga

Another great approach to meditate in movement is rather young. It is called Vinyasa Flow Yoga. In this style, all yoga positions are synchronized with a breathing which gives you the notion of a word “vinyasa.” The practice is quite free and fluent with a slow flowing from one asana to another. The pressure gives place to stretching, the breath is slow and deep.

TriYoga

This beautiful and graceful style was designed in the USA by incredible woman Kali Ray. Sometimes it also called “relaxation an action.” The base of this practice is yoga flow which is destined to maintain balance and awareness. It consists of learning main foundations – you start from an origin of yoga poses and their alignments. When it is mastered, you may move to breathing and concentration techniques. At the beginner level, you mostly work on building strength, flexibility, breath control and endurance. And only after some time of hard work with your body you may “level-up” your practice to meditation in movement.

Hopefully, we achieved to enlighten these main 4 moving meditation types for you and inspired you to try something from this. Practice and all is coming!