The first most of us heard about practicing yoga online, both as teachers and practitioners, was as the country descended into the first covid lockdown. Up until that point you may have practiced yoga with a pre-recorded YouTube video but I bet you hadn’t practiced online, live, in community, with a teacher there purely for you.
In those strange weeks and months where we couldn’t head to the studio or community centre live online yoga classes were exactly what a lot us needed. But why, now that the world is pretty much back to normal, would you still be practicing online?
It’s convenient
Practicing yoga online means that you can practice in your own space at home. For a lot of us this is more convenient than going to a studio for a class. If you’re juggling practice and children you can practice in the room next door while they hopefully amuse themselves or if you are squeezing a class in before you need to head out then practicing online takes away the time of travelling to a class.
It’s not for everyone and can be a different experience to practicing in an in person group but the convenience of being at home is a real bonus to some.
It’s flexible
Often studios require block bookings, may have waitlists for classes and have strict no show policies. This is all because there is more risk with running an in person space, so rightly so studios have to protect themselves. With online classes though there is often more of a degree of flexibility. Classes tend to be run on more of a drop in basis, have larger capacity and there is a shorter cut off for cancelation charges. This means if you’re someone who struggles to get to the same in person studio class every week then online may work better for you
It’s more affordable
Obviously this factor depends on your disposable income but with the teacher having less overheads than when hiring a space, online classes tend to work out more affordably.
I know that it can be tempting to jump onto a YouTube video for free, in fact I have my own offerings of just this in the class library, but practicing online with a live teacher is a different experience and one which the teacher deserves to be paid for.
It’s familiar
Maybe circumstances have changed and you can no longer make the class you used to practice at in studio or you don’t live anywhere near your favourite yoga teacher, well that doesn’t matter with online. One of my favourite things about teaching live online yoga classes is that I see familiar faces from around the country week on week. Some of these are students I have also taught in person, but some are purely online.
The familiarity of practicing with a regular teacher can be really beneficial to the practice. Because there is that familiarity you may find your nervous system settling quicker, meaning there are less distractions and you feel held in the space.
It can be anonymous
One of the biggest benefits for practicing online though is the anonymity it can bring. There is no pressure to turn your camera on so you can be as anonymous as you would like to be while practicing. For those who might feel uncomfortable in a studio setting this is a huge bonus. It can take away the anxieties of feeling like others are watching, that you are not wearing the right clothes or doing the right thing. As a yoga teacher I would love to remind everyone that these things don’t matter and that everyone is welcome in whatever space yoga is being taught in but I am also not naïve enough to think that we have truly solved the problem of accessibility and inclusion in yoga spaces. Unfortunately this means that there are those who feel uncomfortable to be in that space but the online yoga space can be much more welcoming.
It makes different classes more accessible
Practicing online means you can seek out different teachers, styles and classes that you might not be able to find in your local geographic area. Sometimes the local timetables just don’t work for your practice but when you have teachers across the whole country teaching in their own unique way you are bound to find something that works for you
Curious about practicing online?
How about joining me for a class