Having taught online since 2011, I’m a huge fan of the medium. It began as a necessity - clients travelling who wanted stay in their practice. Skype was the thing and there was certainly a learning curve. How to set up the laptop? How far away? Do you want to see my head or my feet? Then there were better phones, tablets, cool things to mount the phones and tablets for great angles and it all got a little easier. And I got more experience.

These days it’s pretty low drag for most people to achieve the optimal set up: a flexible stand and a tablet and part of room where you can set up. In the last post, “Basics of Zoom Virtual Yoga,” I shared what you need to know about the space, the set up and the props. In this one we get to focus on the stuff that I think really makes this exciting: the benefits.

There are so many ways that the zoom virtual yoga option enhances practice, making the in studio yoga class part of a fuller practice that spans home and world. The whole studio phenomenon was started as an alternative to gyms, but still copying the gym model: a place you go for this thing you check off your list, where they have the expensive and fancy equipment for something prohibitive to do at home. Yoga’s not like that - doesn’t have to be. It’s one of the many awesome things about yoga: all you really need is you. Practicing from your inner sanctum makes that ever more a reality.

By zoom virtual yoga we’re not talking about recordings (though those are part of the bennies!) but about live, interactive classes where a teacher designs a practice with YOU in mind after personally checking in and knowing you, who then watches you and cues you when something could be adjusted for more happiness.

1. Your space is imbued with the rhythm of your practice. This is no small thing. You’re more likely to practice on your own (Personal Yoga Practice) if you have a template body memory. There’s less friction to overcome, more comfort, more “I can totally do this.”

2. You can stay in Savasanahhhhh! as long as you like! Don’t feel like getting up after that awesome final relaxation or Yoga Nidra? Cool beans! Ride the relaxation wave! You could even do a bedtime Yoga Nidra class - from bed!

3. You get to meet everyone’s fur friends. This one sounds small, but really it’s massive. We invest so much in our fur friends and as we share that sometimes frustrating adorableness together, we learn and understand one another in new ways.

4. More yoga every week. It’s not just the lack of commute (see below), but classes can be offered - and people actually come! - at times that aren’t practical in studio. 6am yoga classes are wayyyyy easier for everyone if they’re close to your coffee maker and the shower. 8pm bedtime classes are way more effective when you don’t have to drive home afterward.

5. The recordings are recordings of practices you may have actually experienced in person, designed with you (and others) in mind. That class that left you feeling just so amazing? You can have it again and better pick out the magical bits and add those like gems into your personal yoga practice.

6. Bring yoga to your zooming! By having yoga practices on zoom, or virtually, you embody habits of posture and breath, of quietude, that can transfer to your other virtual activities, whether it’s family talks or stressful meetings or presentation.

7. Join us from anywhere! We have members all over the place and members who travel to all sorts of places. We’ve had people join from Saskatchewan, Alaska, New Jersey, lots in California, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska…. people who practice with us many times a week. The flexibility that zoom brings to your opportunity to practice is a big advantage.

8. No commute!

9. No spread of nasty viruses!

10. No masks!