It was a practice used to get your body ready for meditation- not necessarily a workout. This makes sense in that yoga grounds the body and mind. Moving your body in intentional ways helps bring focus to the mind. I'm sure it's a lot more comfortable to sit for an hour in meditation if you have released some physical tension.
In addition, the corpse pose (you know--laying on your back, legs extended, feet rested outward, hands at your sides with palms open to the sky and eyes closed, usually done in the last minutes of class) is actually supposed to be held for a quarter of your yoga session. So if we practice for an hour, we should be corpsing for fifteen minutes. The instructor who told us this received a round of incredulous chuckles from the class and promised not to make us do it. Interesting that LAYING ON YOUR BACK would be considered a ridiculous request.
Some Austin yogis that practice more true to its origins, think Austin is filled with "yogalebrities." Yogalebrities (not in the dictionary) are people that may be focusing outwardly by self-promoting and building a studio following instead of keeping the focus inward and egoless- more true to yogic origins. A definition of yoga truly presents it as a practice for developing the self.
1. a school of Hindu philosophy advocating and prescribing a course of physical and mental disciplines for attaining liberation from the material world and union of the self with the Supreme Being or ultimate principle.
2. any of the methods or disciplines prescribed, especially a series of postures and breathing exercises practiced to achieve control of the body and mind, tranquillity, etc.
3. union of the self with the Supreme Being or ultimate principle. [dictionary.com]
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