The post that broke my comment section
A few weeks ago, I posted a simple carousel on Instagram. The cover slide: not every pose needs you to call out the Sanskrit name. Eight slides. A few examples. I clicked publish and went on with my Wednesday.
Then the comments started rolling in. Some teachers said yes, finally, thank you. Others were—let’s call it spirited. And some of the most thoughtful responses came from teachers who love this practice and its language as much as I do, and who genuinely sharpened how I think about it.
The Instagram caption could only hold so much nuance. So this post is the longer answer. The bigger one is the podcast episode it became—linked at the bottom and embedded below.
What I actually said
My argument was never English instead of Sanskrit. Your job in any given moment is to help the person in front of you find the shape, follow the breath, and settle the mind. The language serves that work; it doesn’t replace it.
In a roomful of experienced practitioners who already recognize Utthita Trikonasana, the Sanskrit can deepen the practice—shared vocabulary, lineage, beauty.
With a room full of brand-new students, those same words can land as a string of sounds they can’t attach to anything yet—they spend a beat decoding, miss your next cue, glance around the room, and they’re in their heads instead of their bodies.
So the guidance was: pick the language that serves the student you’re actually teaching, not the language that proves you know things.
Here’s the part I didn’t say clearly enough the first time. To a true beginner, Triangle is not actually more accessible than Trikonasana—both are just words they haven’t connected to their body yet. So this was never really about choosing the “easier” language. It’s about describing the shape and the sensation so well that the name, in any language, isn’t the thing carrying the class. Once the body knows the pose, the name has something to land on.
Keep the student at the center
It’s easy to harden into a rule—always English, or always Sanskrit—and decide in advance what every class everywhere should sound like. But a fixed rule puts the teacher’s preference at the center. The more useful question is the one a rule can’t answer: who are the students in this room, and what serves them right now?
This is what I mean when I talk about being the guide, not the center. Our job isn’t to perform our credentials. It’s to help people move, breathe, and feel what’s happening in their bodies.
Sanskrit isn’t decoration
Yoga is a living tradition, carried forward today by Indian teachers and practitioners, and Sanskrit runs all the way through it—for many people the sound itself is part of the practice. There’s a real and important conversation in yoga about cultural appropriation: who gets to teach this practice, who profits from it, whose voices we amplify. I take it seriously, and the whole point is to teach with more care, not less. But honoring a tradition isn’t the same as performing it. Lineage shows up in how we teach—the attention we bring to the language, the stories, and the students—not just in the words we drop into a cue.
Steelmanning the pushbacks
A “steelman” is the opposite of a strawman. Instead of arguing the weakest version of someone’s position, you engage with the strongest one. Three pushbacks from the comments deserve that treatment.
1. The lineage argument. “Teach the students who Virabhadra was. Weave the story into your theming. Students start to appreciate the depth of the practice beyond the postures.”
Yes. Naming a pose can be an invitation into a story, and that story can be a doorway into the philosophy that makes yoga yoga, not just stretching. Done with intention, this is gorgeous teaching. The one thing I’d add is practical: how much of the story you tell depends on how much room the moment gives you. A quick drop-in class leaves less space than a regular group, a training, or a workshop—so match the depth to the time you have, not to who you decide is ready for it.
2. The repetition argument. “They don’t know the name until they know the name. If I always called it Virabhadrasana II, that’s what they’d know it as.”
Completely true. If you teach a regular weekly group and you commit to layering Sanskrit in gradually, your students will absolutely come to know the names through repetition. My response: that long arc requires a long relationship. If you’re teaching drop-ins at a gym, the arc doesn’t exist. Match your language to the relationship you actually have with the room.
3. The interspersing argument. “English the first time, English and Sanskrit the second, Sanskrit the third. Both languages on the first side, Sanskrit on the second side. English layered back in any time the room looks lost.”
This is craft. This is what serving the student looks like when you’ve thought it through. Nothing to push back on. This is the answer.
When you do use Sanskrit, use it well
Three things matter.
One. Learn to pronounce it. The Sanskrit tradition holds that the sounds themselves carry meaning—how you say a word is part of what the word does. You don’t have to be a scholar. You do have to care. Quick example: the word asanais not pronounced like the productivity software. The first vowel is a long “a”—the “ah” you’d hear in father. So: AH-sah-nah, with the weight up front. Chakra is not SHAH-kra; it’s a hard chuh sound, the same as in chocolate-chip cookies. For learning, I’d point you first to teachers carrying this language from inside the tradition: Dr. Anuradha Choudry, a Sanskrit scholar who teaches the sounds as a living practice, with accessible classes online; and Dr. M. A. Jayashree, a Sanskrit teacher from Mysore who teaches chanting in the traditional method. For a practical starting point, Nicolai Bachman’s flashcards and his book The Language of Yoga walk you clearly through your first asana names.
Two. Pair Sanskrit with English when your students need the meaning. Sanskrit on its own is a sound. Sanskrit with English is a teaching. Bhujangasana, cobra pose—you’ve given them the original word and the meaning. The English is the bridge. Drop the bridge and you haven’t gotten more authentic; you’ve gotten less helpful. This pairs naturally with the 3-Cue Rule for confident, uncluttered teaching.
Three. Tell the stories. Most pose names aren’t decorative. They come from somewhere. Virabhadra was a fierce warrior born from Shiva’s grief, and the three Warrior poses each carry a piece of his story. Hanuman’s splits come from his leap across the ocean. The serpents thread through the tradition for a reason. These names aren’t trivia. They’re the philosophy you care about, hiding inside the asana names you already use. A beautiful entry point: Dr. Raj Balkaran’s The Stories Behind the Poses.
The framework I actually use
Ask yourself who’s in the room. Not who’s on your lineage chart. Who is actually here, today, on these mats.
Use the language that gets them into their bodies fastest. If Triangle lands and Utthita Trikonasana doesn’t, use Triangle. If your regulars know the Sanskrit, use the Sanskrit.
Layer when it deepens the practice, not when it performs your credentials. Sanskrit can be an invitation. It can also be a wall. You decide which one you’re building.
And remember the position. You are the guide, not the center. The vocabulary follows the student.
The takeaway
The question isn’t “Should I use Sanskrit or English?” The question is who am I serving right now, and what gets them home to their body fastest. Answer that, and you’ll know exactly what to say.
