Scholars of modern yoga history, including Mark Singleton's widely cited study of how contemporary postural yoga practice developed in the twentieth century, have traced how techniques such as ujjayi, classically taught primarily within seated pranayama practice, were adapted and integrated into the flowing, movement centred styles of yoga, ashtanga and its many vinyasa derived offshoots, that developed substantially in twentieth century India and were then carried and further popularised internationally, a development scholars treat as a genuine and significant reshaping of how a classical technique is used and taught rather than a simple, unchanged continuation of ancient practice.
Within this modern context ujjayi is commonly explained to students as serving several combined functions, regulating and pacing the breath through demanding physical sequences, generating internal heat, and providing a point of continuous mental focus that helps sustain concentration through sustained physical exertion, a practical, integrated role considerably more athletic in framing than the breath's treatment within the Hatha Yoga Pradipika's own primarily seated, meditative pranayama context. Ujjayi remains, alongside nadi shodhana, kapalabhati and bhastrika, one of the standard named pranayamas taught within the broader Pranayama discipline, and it is commonly among the first breath techniques introduced to new students given its comparative gentleness and its wide contemporary use.