Hillary's Yoga Practice: Free Online Yoga Podcast Classes
I was surprised how many yoga professionals have begun to put free classes online connecting people to their voice and their type of yoga, hoping people will tune in more often and buy more of their outside products. What is interesting is that the online yoga crews have become so prominent that there is an Online Virtual Yoga Conference each year.
This particular podcast blog has recently posted its 70th audio of yoga. Hillary Rubin has connections to her Facebook profile, Twitter page, and Myspace account. She began posting in November of 2006 and continues to post every few months including audio accounts of yoga classes. There are a few videos and a lot of advertisements.
While the actual podcasts are focused on content, the first few minutes talk about the program, her sponsors, and the location of their yoga class. This is meant to connect people to the actual yoga classes taking place and it is obvious by looking at her blog that connecting people to more information about her is the prominent reason for the blog postings. 
The idea is good and the classes seems pretty relevant, but sometimes the sound seems to be uneven and pull you out of whatever yoga position you may be in. Her voice is calm and soothing once the actual yoga starts, but during the talking at the beginning it seems rather forced and fake.
Rubin was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1996 and found yoga a healing path that helps her live both symptom and medication free today. She has been practicing since then and is suggested multiple times throughout the blog to be an expert in yoga. While her validity remains unquestioned in my mind, the usefulness of her blog wavers. The colors and organization seems random and unprofessional. The blog (even with the many advertisements) should be setting the podcasts aside since that is what most people visit the site for; instead, they are hidden within many of the explanations Rubin gives.
I would love to subscribe to a free online yoga class, but as a podcast, it makes it hard to envision the moves which Rubin is explaining. I think a better way of doing this would be to create a vlog and make connections through that.
Having tried yoga I can see how it will be hard to visualize yoga moves. I agree with Jess Graff that a vlog would be better suited for a yoga class. However the idea of free yoga class is very appealing.
ReplyDeleteI love Yoga, I had practiced it for one year before. I think it's a smart idea to use a vlog to teach people yoga. And the best thing is it is portable!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of creating a vlog for yoga class, yoga is hard if you never tried before, so visualization is very important. And you can have different levels of yoga class, the elementary class definitely should be a visual one, as long as people started to know it and can do yoga pretty well, you could try the audio yoga. The important thing is to make the learning process understandable and convenient, then people will do it and love it.
ReplyDeleteI'm a much more visual person so I would HAVE to have the yoga moves in front of me where I could see it instead of just listening to her tell me what to do. Otherwise, it just wouldn't be pretty!
ReplyDelete