DURING COVID WE HAD OVER 18 months experiencing yoga in a totally new way, dominated by the Zoom room. Many practitioners are still loving all the benefits online yoga offers them, even though classes and studios are open again. But is online yoga here to stay?
Yes! I certainly think so, if yoga practitioners continue to see the value in paid classes and memberships.
The growth of online fitness classes and wellbeing platforms is accelerating. This growth has been driven by consumer interest in healthy lifestyles, lack of time and the demand surge caused by COVID-19, with an expectation for this market to be worth $59.23 Billion by 2027.
Whichever way you look at that figure, there is a huge demand out there from yoga practitioners and fitness fans for paid online offerings to carry on.
Online has been such a revelation for so many yoga practitioners and teachers as well. There’s so many great benefits for everyone involved in the industry, from the practitioners to teachers and studios too.
The overwhelming convenience and flexibility of online classes are probably the biggest selling points for many busy people all over the world.
Going to a yoga class usually looks something like this; put your yoga kit on, leave home or work on time, get in car drive to studio/class, park somewhere, pay for parking, make sure to arrive early enough to settle in and get a great spot, do the class then reverse the process to go back home. Whichever way you cut it there’s one word for this: faff.
Online classes are so much more convenient to fit in. You can roll out of bed, on to your mat and press play or click a link with a couple of minutes to go before class. That cuts the time investment down hugely which so valuable for practitioners and teachers too.
Some styles of class like yin or restorative are even more suited to the online world. There is nothing worse than feeling so relaxed you’re horizontal and then having to get into the car and drive home dealing with other cars and dodgy driving! So, an evening yin class where you can get off your mat and toddle off to the sofa or bed is the best thing ever.
The internet of course isn’t bound by geography or time zones. You can literally practice with any teacher anywhere in the world so that can hugely expand your yoga horizons. We are SO spoilt now with choice, which is only a good thing!
There’s also a lot more teachers offering different options and ways to consume yoga now. Online live classes via video streaming services, yoga memberships that include on demand classes, meditations and mini-workshops, journal prompts and printable worksheets are all available out there from the wonderful independent teachers we have in the UK.
For practitioners, this means there’s bound to be an option that works for you offering you a variety of ways to take your practice as well as learning more too.
Online classes and memberships are often affordable because they’re created once by the teacher and are always available. This is important to increase access to yoga at pocket friendly and tiered prices (for example, my membership starts at £10 per month).
It’s also very important to talk about why online yoga is so fantastic from a yoga teacher’s perspective too. For me and the other independent yoga teachers out there, it means we can diversify our incomes, so we don’t solely have to rely on teaching in studios or running in person classes.
You might not know that many yoga teachers lost hugely when COVID hit with studios closing. As self-employed people, many of us couldn’t be furloughed or get access to government support.
What did we do? We got our thinking caps on! Online yoga means that we can continue to offer yoga, have an income and get to be incredibly creative and innovative with our work.
When you sign up to an online class with an independent teacher, you’re shopping small and supporting these small businesses which is a wonderful thing to do and you get access to top-notch yoga at affordable prices.
That alone is reason to sign up and support an independent teacher rather than relying on huge YouTube stars who get paid thousands every time you watch a class of theirs for free. These are the people whose classes you go to regularly, so why not give a bit back to them?
There are also plenty of students and teachers out there who feel online isn’t for them. Sometimes, that’s the case and 100% okay. Humans as a species are programmed to not favour change. Change is unknown. That can sometimes appear scary and threatening to our nervous systems.
One of the biggest bones of contention is the lack of community compared to an in person class. Socio-economic factors like space at home, an internet connection, having access to childcare at affordable prices are trickier hurdles to deal with for students and teachers.
Many teachers feel they have a lack of business acumen or aren’t in an entrepreneurial mindset. Surprisingly, business skills aren’t taught on many teacher trainings and that impacts on the teacher feeling like they are confident, skilled enough and able to teach in this new way never mind deal with all the new tech and equipment we need to use. It takes a lot of confidence to do and there’s so many teachers out there who hugely struggle with this.
A great online experience is about more than setting up a Zoom account and sending out a link. It’s about doing things to foster a virtual community like offering space and time for chats pre and post class or a student forum, the teacher watching and offering pointers to those in the virtual room.
Ultimately though, it’s about being willing to give it a go for everyone involved – there’s a huge difference between perception of an online class and what a good one is like, then acknowledging that online isn’t going to be an identical experience, but that doesn’t make it a bad one.
The online world has so much to offer us as yoga practitioners as teachers, ways to fit yoga in easily, try new things, and deepen our understanding. It’s a huge time of change and that is hugely exciting for all of us!
By Jade Beckett
@prideyoga
Jade is an independent yoga teacher, business coach and author based outside Oxford. Jade teaches yoga in person, online live classes and via her Pride Pack yoga membership. Find out more at: www.prideyoga.co.uk
