Private Yoga via Skype

I have my first private yoga-via-skype client! We had our third weekly session together this morning and it’s so cool.

The sessions are with Lucy, one of my very first yoga students. She came to the boathouse at Sugar Bush Farm, my husband’s family home in Northern Wisconsin, the first summer I offered classes. We have been getting together for either private or small group sessions each summer ever since. I love all my yoga clients, especially Lucy.

Previous years, it was sad to have our last session, knowing it would be another year before we would be together again. But this summer she said, “I wonder if we could keep doing yoga via Skype this fall and winter.” I immediately sent an email to my brother, Pete, to get the technical scoop and voila, my private yoga sessions have gone high-tech!

Lucy has been doing yoga with me for several years. She knows her postures and could do the yoga on her own, but prefers the discipline and accountability that working with a teacher provide, so she is thrilled to be able to keep up her weekly practice throughout the year and I am excited to stay connected with her.

When I googled “yoga via skype,” I discovered that there are several yoga teachers offering similar services. It’s a great way for so many people to practice yoga – introverts who don’t like big classes, busy individuals who don’t have time to get to class, business travelers who want to keep up their sessions even when they are on the road, students with injuries who want to receive detailed instruction on how to modify exercises to accommodate their body’s abilities – for example.

As yoga gets increasingly popular, the choices for how to practice get more varied. You now can practice yoga in gyms, health clubs, yoga studios, at home with a private instructor or with books, CDs, DVDs, television shows, wii-fit, youtube, iphone applications, or skype. Since yoga has had such a positive impact on my life, I say the more options we have for doing yoga the better.

I love having so many choices for practicing yoga. Yoga teacher trainer required that I develop a home practice, which took time to get used to after so many years attending classes. Now, I can honestly say that I prefer practicing at home on my own to attending a crowded class, but still enjoy mixing it up with the occasional class, DVDs and a few favorite yoga apps I’ve discovered on i-tunes.

How about you – would you ever consider yoga via skype? What’s your favorite way to do yoga?