iYoga - Crazy New Frontiers

Posted Saturday July 29th, 2006

My friend Evan sent me a crazy link this week – to iYoga. Anyone who's interested in Yoga for Geeks should check this out... it's interesting stuff. I'm not sure what to make of it.

iYoga is a special purpose word processor with speech and timing capability. To create an iYoga class, you simply type text like this:
To begin, practice Mountain Pose for 10 breaths.
Feel the natural curve of your lower back and the even grounding of your feet against the Earth;
Because you control each word that iYoga speaks, your practice can be tailored to your needs, going beyond the repetitive instruction and music of CD's and DVD's.

So it's software that allows you to create your own yoga classes to listen to. You can choose the voice, and your computer will soothingly (or not, depending on your voice choice) talk you through a lesson.

During a class with iYoga technology fades away as iTunes plays music in your sacred space and your Mac provides words of guidance from the pragmatic to the poetic.

An interesting idea... I just can't imagine it for myself. I'd be interested to hear what others feel about the iYoga idea? My sense is that it requires a certain level of knowledge of the practice and the poses to begin with. But hey, I'm excited that there are developers out there working on this sort of thing!

It makes me feel like I really should get going with my YFG podcast I keep thinking about. I'm finally getting the audio skills down enough that it might be a possibility in the near future... Stay tuned.

Why I wrote iYoga.

On August 24th, 2006 iyojo (not verified) says:

Hello Sarah - Thank you for posting a note about iYoga. [Disclaimer: I am the author]. I wrote it to bring the vast yoga literature into my daily practice, and make my home practice more like an instructor led class. I like Rodney Yee and Nina Zolotow's words in Poetry of the Body, for example, and while reading them is great, actually practicing to them is even better. Many yoga books and websites, from beginner to advanced, contain asana sequences, words of guidance and timings for poses. iYoga lets you connect to these words of great teachers as timed audio that can be experienced during practice. And modify them to help you meet your goals. My hope is that more people will develop a home practice to augment their classes. As for the voices on Mac OS X, I rather like Vicki now that I've spent some time listening to her. I'd invite her for tea if she were available. But for others, Apple has announced Alex (http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/accessibility.html) in its upcoming Leopard release. Best of luck with yogaforgeeks.com, it's a wonderful idea. - iyojo

A Reader Review

On July 31st, 2006 sarahfelicity says:

(From over at my other site where I also posted this...)

#178 On 30 July, 2006 10:33pm Ariane said,

Hi Sarah-- I've been reading your blog for a few weeks, discovered it through the drupal people (I went to the Seattle drupal camp this summer). Anyway, just some thoughts on this, I played the iYoga demo, and I'm not sure if it was the voice that weirded me out, but I was just not feeling it. It seems kind of...disconnected? Part of what is great about yoga for me is that it is kind of natural and human. I don't really know how to verbalize it, but when it's in a class setting, you are with these other people who are breathing and moving with you... and when you are on your own, it is very meditative... I even like doing the tv yoga that's on at lunch, and am excitedly waiting to see what comes of Yoga for Geeks! But the iYoga, I think I'm going to have to give an iThumbsdown. Maybe it could turn into something interesting down the road, but for now, it's just kinda creepy!