Beyond the 8 Limbs: Lesser-Known Gems of the Yoga Sutras

Go beyond the Eight Limbs and explore the deeper, often-overlooked teachings of the Yoga Sutras—including samskara, samyama, and the kleshas.

As new yoga students, we learn asana, pranayama and dhyana (if we’re lucky). As new yoga teachers, we get a broader understanding of all 8 Limbs. They’re often introduced in our 200 hour teacher trainings as the framework of Yoga, and rightly so—they are the foundation of the practice. But the Eight Limbs only take up a small portion of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, one of yoga’s most foundational and powerful texts.

The other 180+ sutras? It's a complicated web of wisdom that rarely gets explored in 200-hour trainings (unless you’re “lucky” enough to have taken my YTT lately😉). An in depth study of the sutras can help deepen your understanding of yoga, not just asana—off the mat, when teaching and especially when training.

If you’ve ever felt like there’s more to yoga than what you’ve been taught—more depth, more nuance, more truth—you’re absolutely right. Let’s look at a few of the lesser-known but deeply impactful teachings of the Yoga Sutras that I think deserve more attention.

🧘‍♀️ 1. Practice and Non-Attachment: The Twin Pillars (Sutra 1.12)

“Abhyasa vairagyabhyam tannirodhah”
Practice and non-attachment are the means to still the fluctuations of the mind.

This is the foundation of the yogic path. The combination of abhyasa (persistent, dedicated effort) and vairagya (the ability to let go of the results) is where the magic happens.

As yoga teachers, we often lean heavily on abhyasa—we practice, create great sequences, themes and playlists, teach and repeat. But if we don’t also cultivate non-attachment, we burn out after awhile. Or, perhaps we get bored and loose the passion. We can get stuck in perfectionism, performance, imposter syndrome or disappointment when students don't come back or don’t progress.

Understanding how to embody both of these concepts IRL—and how to guide students through that balance—is a powerful gift.

⏳ 2. Long-Term Practice that Changes You (Sutra 1.14)

“Practice becomes firmly grounded when well attended to for a long time, without break, and in all earnestness.”

This isn’t about doing more sun salutations or finishing the latest studio challenge. This sutra is about becoming steady and disciplined-creating tapas. It’s a reminder that depth doesn’t come from intensity—it comes from consistency, presence, and devotion. How many students have you seen never miss a day in a year and then never return? How many teachers do you know that took a YTT, taught a bit and never hit their mat again?

As yoga teachers, we can easily get distracted by the next shiny modality or trend. But mastery—and leadership—come from the willingness to stay, to refine, to deepen. You don’t need to reinvent yourself, but peel back the layers to your center, which has always been there. Yoga is not practicing to master the pose, it's about Mastering the Practice.

🧠 3. The Kleshas: Teaching from Self-Awareness (Sutra 2.3 – 2.10)

Patanjali names five “kleshas”—mental-emotional obstacles that distort perception and create suffering: ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and fear of death.

We all experience them. But as teachers, when we remain unconscious of them, they seep into our teaching. We may teach to show off our perfect poses, or avoid a particular student who had criticism, or we over-give and under-resource ourselves because we’re attached to being the "good teacher."

Advanced yoga study invites us to bring awareness to these patterns, not to judge them—but to liberate ourselves from them. When we can name and see the kleshas in ourselves, we become more compassionate, grounded, and powerful teachers.

🌀 4. Samyama: The Fusion of Focus, Meditation, and Flow (Sutras 3.1–3.6)

In the third pada of the Sutras, Patanjali introduces a trilogy of practices (the last of 8 Limbs)—dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (absorption)—which when practiced together, become samyama.

Samyama is about moving beyond physical efforting (doing) into intuitive awareness (being). It teaches us that deep insight doesn’t come from trying harder, but from aligning intention, attention, and presence. The how comes from becoming aware of the pause—between breaths, between thoughts, between the noise.

As a yoga teacher, cultivating this capacity helps you read the room. It helps you adjust your class in real time, sense the energy of your students and teach with more intuition than script. This is one of the most overlooked but transformative aspects of advanced teaching.

🔄 5. Samskara: Understanding the Patterns That Shape Us (Sutras 2.10, 4.9)

Patanjali introduces the concept of samskara—the impressions left on the mind by past actions, thoughts, and experiences--which is intricately related to karma. These impressions form our habitual patterns, both conscious and unconscious. I learned to think of samskaras as the deeply grooved tracks we tend to fall into, like trails in deep snow: our default reactions, beliefs, and behaviors.

Even when latent, samskaras influence our perceptions and actions.

For yoga teachers, this is crucial. Samskara explains why your student avoids hip openers, or why you keep over-preparing for classes even when you know you’re capable. It’s why someone always holds their breath in stillness or gets agitated in savasana. These patterns aren’t random—they’re woven into the nervous system and psyche.

When you understand samskara, your teaching shifts from mechanical to meaningful. You’re not just guiding a sequence—you’re helping students rewire how they inhabit their bodies and their lives.

🪶 Why This Matters for Yoga Teachers

At some point when you have a firm understanding of the whole body of sutras, your students stop asking about Warrior II—and start asking deeper questions:

“Why do I feel stuck in my life?”
“How do I calm my anxiety?”
“Why do I cry in pigeon pose?”

And that’s where your depth matters.

You don’t need to have all the answers—but you do need to have a container strong enough to hold those moments. When you go beyond the 8 Limbs and begin to embody the deeper teachings of the Yoga Sutras, you create that container. You become more than an instructor—you become a guide.

🧭 Want to Go Deeper?

In our 300-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training at Midwest Yoga Academy, we dive into the Yoga Sutras not as dogma, but as a living philosophy. We explore how to apply them to modern life, how to bring them into our teaching without sounding preachy, and how to live them—not just quote them. Learn more here.