When I started studying Chinese martial arts, specializing in Taijiquan, at Shanghai University of Sport in 2010, one of the big questions we kept discussing was: Why is yoga so much more popular? How can we promote our own practice better? And so on. Back then, yoga was like our big brother, while Taijiquan was somehow hiding in the corner. It seems that quite a lot has changed in our community since then.

Lately, I keep hearing that yoga is on the decline. According to some, it’s actually experiencing a dramatic downfall. People are no longer attending classes, studios are closing, teachers are struggling to find work…

Of course, if you look around and notice that not every fitness studio in your neighborhood offers yoga anymore, and your friends would rather play pickleball or do Pilates, it certainly looks that way. But I’ve been looking through some statistics, and things don’t seem quite so tragic for yoga.

Before getting into the numbers, though, I think it’s worth remembering just how important a role yoga has played in the Western world.

Yoga arrived in the West, particularly in the United States, back in the 19th century. One of the key figures was Swami Vivekananda, who introduced Indian yoga philosophy to American audiences in 1893. However, yoga as a form of physical exercise didn’t really start gaining widespread popularity until the 1960s, followed by another major wave of growth in the 1990s.

At the time, Western fitness culture placed a lot of emphasis on cardio, lifting weights, and physical fitness in general. And, of course, a lot of it was also about how you looked and what kind of body you could build.

Yoga offered a rather different perspective on what exercise could actually be.

It wasn’t primarily about burning calories, building big muscles, or improving cardiovascular fitness. Instead, it emphasized flexibility, balance, breathing, concentration, relaxation, and the connection between body and mind.

These ideas played an important role in the development of modern Western wellness culture. Yoga certainly wasn’t the only influence, but it became one of its most recognizable representatives. It helped change the way Western society thinks about exercise.

And here’s where things get interesting.

Yoga actually helped create the conditions for its own competition.

Today, people aren’t just looking for bigger muscles, better fitness, or a slimmer body. They’re also interested in mobility, balance, recovery, healthy aging, and mental well-being.

But all of these benefits are now being offered by Pilates, barre, various forms of functional training, breathwork, Taijiquan, Qigong, and many other activities.

The fitness world has also become much more diverse. More and more activities are entering the mainstream, whether it’s pickleball, running, barre, or HYROX. And Pilates, in particular, has absolutely taken off in recent years.

But does that actually mean yoga is declining?

According to the 2026 Sports Participation in the U.S. report by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA), yoga participation in the United States has decreased somewhat, but we’re hardly looking at a dramatic collapse.

In 2019, approximately 30.4 million Americans practiced yoga. By 2025, that number had fallen to 27.8 million, representing a decline of 8.6%.

You can read the full report here.

While this report focuses exclusively on the United States, ClassPass provides data from dozens of countries around the world.

ClassPass is a global platform that allows people to book classes at various fitness studios. According to its statistics, yoga was the second most-booked fitness activity in 2019, just behind strength training.

And in 2025? Yoga was still in second place. The only difference was that Pilates had climbed to the top.

What’s more, when comparing 2024 and 2025, yoga bookings actually increased by 28%.

So yes, Pilates has experienced tremendous growth, and on some platforms it’s currently more popular than yoga. But yoga itself doesn’t seem to be losing nearly as much ground as some people suggest.

Of course, we also need to distinguish between the number of people practicing a particular activity and the number of classes being booked. Those are two different things.

Still, the panic surrounding yoga’s supposed downfall seems rather exaggerated to me.

Some studios may genuinely be struggling. Some teachers may be losing students, and there’s certainly much more competition than there used to be. But that doesn’t automatically mean yoga itself is experiencing some dramatic decline.

And that’s why I wouldn’t necessarily interpret yoga losing its position as a dominant fitness trend as evidence that the practice itself is dying.

Perhaps the world of fitness is simply changing. And perhaps yoga is now facing competition in a world it helped create.