About YCW

yogacourseware.com started from a simple frustration: the best yoga alignment and sequencing information online is scattered across paywalled courses, inconsistent blog posts, and apps that lock the useful parts behind a subscription. We wanted one place with genuinely thorough, free reference material, an asana encyclopedia you could actually trust, and lesson plans you could actually use, without a credit card.

Every asana page on this site follows the same structure: origin and history, a Sanskrit breakdown, benefits explained rather than just listed, step-by-step instructions, and contraindications that explain why a condition matters, not just that it exists. The free resource library works the same way — real lesson plans and sequences, gated only by an email address, never a payment.

None of the content on this site is paywalled, and none ever will be. Instead, the site is supported by sponsored retreat and course listings from yoga studios and teacher training programs around the world, plus affiliate partnerships and, as traffic grows, display advertising. If you run a retreat or training program, you can sponsor a listing here.

We're a small team building this out gradually: the asana encyclopedia currently covers ten foundational poses in full depth, with new poses added regularly on the way to covering the full traditional asana repertoire.