Yoga Tech: Can Yoga Be Virtual?

It took me a year to figure out how this whole yoga on a web site would work.

In the beginning I just couldn’t see it. I was used to real students in a real studio in real time. There were so many factors to consider when teaching a live class: the mood in the room as you begin and then how it changes during the class, whether there are more men or women attending, what the weather or traffic is like that they are coming from, what information I see in the student’s body as she enters the studio.

How could I possibly construct yoga sessions without knowing all these variables? And without supervising and offering hands-on guidance, how would I be helpful?

One of the co-producers of this web site, a yoga student and healer herself, kept reminding me that there are many places where students do not have the yoga teachers and studios that we are blessed with living in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles or Manhattan.

So then I started writing and visualizing teaching for students who might have access to computers (or DVD players at least) but not to actual yoga studios. It became more challenging as I could not assume anything, including any prior knowledge of yoga outside of knowing the word “yoga.”

Gradually, I began to feel a real community forming, one who I meet through words and thoughts, which is in some ways, even more powerful as it allows us to explore and express what the daily process of being a yoga practitioner truly is – by yourself and in a community at the same time.