The Trouble with Online Yoga - and What to do About it!

Hi,

We’re getting to the end of Lockdown 2.0, and the collective national mood is mainly, ‘Bleugh’.

We’ve had enough.

It’s been such a strange year, and where the first lockdown was scary, dramatic, and new, this one feels tired, dull, and rather depressing.

For some students, we had a brief interlude of in-person classes, but for most of us, my own learning included, this year has been pretty much all online yoga.

What Effect this Has

Online yoga has been around for many years, but this year necessity has driven most yoga classes online.
There are a few things I’ve noticed that can have a negative impact on our experience of online yoga:

1. Technical issues
There are quite a few things technical things that can go wrong with online yoga, but the main culprit is your internet connection. When this is unreliable, it can leave you feeling frustrated and cut off.

2. Space
Most of us are very lucky and have found a space in the house where we can practice yoga and be seen by the camera.

But this might be in the same room as where we work, or in the bedroom, or in a communal family space, leading to a sense of claustrophobia, difficulty concentrating or being bounced on by kids/pets.

3. Seeing/Hearing through the screen
One of my students has done an amazing drawing to show how if I wore a two-tone yoga outfit it would help the class to differentiate between my left and right. Watch this space…

There’s no doubt it’s harder to see the demonstrations on a screen (especially if it's on a phone) and in the evenings in artificial light.

4. Being Muted
We’ve discussed leaving students off mute in some classes, but the problem with this is that background noise, or technical interference can interrupt the class.

The downside of being muted is that it means it’s much harder to ask questions. You also lose the communal sounds of doing a hard or nice pose together.

5. More screen time
For those who are working from home, going back onto a screen for any reason feels exhausting. As I’ve occasionally mentioned, being on a screen hardens the eyes, creating tension.

The blue light emitted from the screen isn’t beneficial for sleeping. And there’s the whole technical side of logging in and so on, which can be a faff.

6. Seeing yourself
The use of zoom means that we can now see ourselves, albeit sometimes very small depending on the type of screen used. This can be useful, but it is also a distraction from feeling the pose, rather than checking to see ourselves in it.

It can also lead to unnecessary ideas about our yoga poses - either not as good as, or better than we thought.

How to Combat these Issues

There are probably more drawbacks than the ones listed above, but there are also lots of positives to be drawn from live-streamed yoga.

I would also say that it is here to stay. So how can we work through these online obstacles to get through to the yoga on offer through this medium?

1. Technical issues
Obviously, the best way to deal with this is to invest in a perfect internet connection and extra boosters all round the house. The other practical solution is to make sure all your other family members aren’t using up acres of broadband at the same time as your lesson.

However, if your internet connection is dodgy the most important thing is not to let it stress you out. If it comes back on, great, if not, use the time that you’d set aside for the class to carry on with a practice.

2. Space
The ideal scenario is to have a dedicated space, which is just for your yoga classes and practice. But if that’s not possible, try to keep the space you do use as clean, clear and clutter-free as possible. Also, you can ask those who live with you to respect your yoga time and try to leave you undisturbed for the class.

Remember that if your kids/cats/dogs/hamsters do come in during the lesson, this is just another way to test our ability to focus on the yoga. Yoga is the stilling of the movements of the mind, even when you have a cat pawing your chin.

3. Seeing/Hearing through the screen
I am investing in some LED lights as I’m aware that as the winter evenings get darker it is becoming harder to see me. There was also a class last week in which I had to yell at the screen so that the students could hear me, but this does seem to have been resolved (thank goodness).

It does also help if you can plug your smaller screen into a bigger one (I know some of you have used a TV). Or come up close so that you can see me. And if you can’t see or hear me please do unmute yourselves and ask.

4. Being Muted
If you miss that sense of being connected then you can always come into the zoom session a little earlier for a chat or to ask a question.

I keep threatening to have a class where everyone’s unmuted, but I think some people would find that distracting. We could always try half and half.

The important thing to remember is that though the sense of yoga community is very supportive, the reason we commit to yoga is to commit to ourselves. Use the silence (apart from my voice blabbering on) to notice your own thoughts and bring your attention to your body in each pose.

5. More screen time
There’s no doubt that lockdown means we are much more reliable on our screens. There’s a balance between looking at the screen and being focused on the yoga. I tend to do the poses with you to begin with, but then I hope to be able to come closer to see you working on the pose without moving your energy outwards.

On a practical level, if you do an evening class you can set the screen to go to a more yellow light after a certain time which is less of a strain on the eyes.

6. Seeing yourself
Yoga acts as a mirror to your true state of being. Sometimes this true state of being is distracted, fed up and irritated. That’s OK!

Occasionally I have found that my tolerance for online yoga classes has taken a nosedive. This hasn’t been down to the teachers, but because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it.

Focusing on my own practice at that point really helped. As well as taking a break from doing too many online classes.

On a practical level, you can also get rid of your own small screen in the bottom right-hand corner by pressing on the blue icon. Then the only way to see yourself is through the yoga.

To Conclude

I hope this doesn’t come across as too negative. As a teacher, online yoga has taught me a lot – about myself and my students.

And as you can see from the featured image, online yoga expands the borders of yoga, meaning that distance is no barrier.

The most powerful message that online yoga has delivered to me is to have faith in the yoga. To trust that in whatever format it comes at the moment, that it will help.

And that there is ALWAYS more to learn!

Please do LET ME KNOW if there is anything you've found from doing online yoga for the last 8 months - what you've enjoyed about it and what you've struggled with. Together we can make this the best experience possible.