I started practicing yoga in 2011 to help ease my growing knee pain due to running. Surprisingly, practicing yoga helped the pain in my knees, and I have been on and off practicing it ever since. Because I have to accommodate the needs of the clients who come to therapy before and after the traditional working hours, I have difficulty to go to the yoga studio regularly. In the last few years, I have been relying on “YouTube Yoga” to help me sustain my yoga practice.
Research has found yoga helpful in coping with trauma, stress, depression, and anxiety. I listed all the research articles I have read at the bottom of this entry for your references.
If you have never tried yoga before, I highly recommended that you take some classes in the local yoga studio with the certified teachers. When we do yoga at home while watching the video, we are not able to see our own postures because the eyes are on TV. It’s essential to have the teacher to watch out for you in the beginning until you are familiar with the basics of the yoga postures.
However, if you can’t afford to go to the studio or your schedule is not flexible, please start by all the foundational yoga postures in these channels to get yourself familiar with all the basic poses before you try the entire class.
Here are the channels I have tried and would like to share with you. Before I get into the details of why I like each channel, I want to answer this commonly asked question: how do you know which one you are going to do? My first criteria are “how much time do I have?” Most of the channels created the playlist based on the length of the program. I generally go into the playlist with the time I have. My second criteria are how I feel about my body at the moment. If I feel very sore, I might do a deep stretch. If I feel the need to have more exercise, I might go with a flow type of yoga. Most of the channels provide the playlist that group the similar type of yoga together.
Yoga with Adrienne is my very first yoga channel. I went to a yoga retreat in summer 2016 and was eager to continue the practice. I googled yoga channel and Yoga with Adrienne was the first one showed up.
What I liked about this channel was the 30/31-day challenge series. Every January, Adrienne put out a 30/31 day challenge. For me, it kept me on track whenever I fall out of the practice. Having a streak of yoga practice for seven days put me back to the right track. Usually, once I started something, it’s hard for me not to finish it. By the time I completed 30 days, yoga practice had become part of my daily self-care practice.
I also like how they put out a monthly playlist with a theme. If you are that kind of person loves to see yourself finishing “a streak” of routines, monthly playlist or 30-day challenge can be exciting to get you on a routine practice.
Generally, Adrienne’s yoga routine does not have difficult poses and generally slow pace. If you are a beginner, this is a channel to go.
I started to explore different yoga channel after practicing Yoga with Adrienne for about a year. In the meantime, I started to go to my local yoga studio and accidentally experienced different types of yoga, Restorative Yoga, and Yin Yoga.
These two types of yoga practices hold and stay in the poses longer. As a runner, these two types of yoga practices balance my running, which is active. They also help me stretch out the sore muscles after the long run.
Kassandra also provides a lot of programs targeting different areas of physical health, such as gut health, hormonal balance, etc..She also provides some program that combines yoga practice with affirmation. She invited you to notice if the statement resonates with you and if not, notice your own resistance. It’s a good combination of mindfulness with yoga practice.
For example, this is one of my favorite Yin practice targeting kidney meridian.
Kassandra’s vinyasa yoga flow program is much rigorous than Adrianne’s vinyasa yoga program with more postures that do require some yoga foundation practices. This comparison is just a personal preference.
I accidentally found Brett Larkin’s Yoga channel searching fro the post-run yoga. At that time, I was starting to explore different yoga channel other than Adrianne’s channel. I immediately was hooked with Brett’s yoga program. First, she offers yoga challenges like Adrianne’s program but shorter duration, such as 14-day yoga challenge. Second, her vinyasa yoga program is undoubtedly much more challenge than Adrianne’s program. Third, she also offers Kudalini yoga, which is a different type of yoga practices with the mantra and breathing. What I also like about Brett’s yoga program is the Chakra . I can focus on seven different chakras from Sunday to Saturday. In a way, these are all different strategies for me to keep the yoga practice exciting and feeling as if there is a system going on.
I honestly cannot remember how I found Erin’s yoga channel. I think I was searching for post-run yoga practice and hers popped up.
I found Erin’s channel much more challenging but also very interesting for me. Most of her vinyasa yoga sequences start from the simple flow and gradually built on challenging posture in the next round. So, the simple poses are the foundation and warm-up. In the next round, she adds one challenging posture after the flow in the previous series. At the end of the practice, you realized that you are reaching a much more challenging pose, but you can do it because she gradually introduces them in during each round!
This is one of my favirote video integrate Warrior 1, 2, and 3 poses into a vinyasa flow.
Therefore, Erin’s program tends to run a little longer than the other instructor’s curriculum. Also, her practice is so much more rigorous and more difficult. I found myself often tired out with sweats at the end of the program, even only for 45 minutes!!!!
If I overslept and didn’t have time to go out for a run, Erin’s channel is my to-go channel because it’s a good work out for me!
Currently, Erin’s channel and Kassandra’s channel are my go-to channels. I can always find something suitable for my circumstances (time, energy level, or specific needs, such as knee or hip issues) in either channel.
This channel popped up as a YouTube recommendation. It used to call Yoga with Tim. If you have difficulties to follow female instructors and feel that yoga is not for men, this is a channel for you.
The program in this channel tends to run a little bit longer (about 45-min to over an hour), and the posture is much harder for me. I hardly practice with this program because I don’t have the strength to hold my body on the yoga mate either balance the posture or to do push-ups. So, if you like the challenges and have strong muscle strength and balance, this is the program for you.
The earlier yoga is taught by Tim, but recently, there are different instructors, including female instructors in the video. I don’t practice with this channel frequently enough to give any comments but only to say this: too hard for my current muscle strength.
If you are looking for a male instructor, Sean’s channel is the one to go. He provides different collections, yoga, power yoga, core yoga workout, pilates, etc.. I found his channel very real. One of the earlier program I watched recorded from the time he got out of the bed to the entire exercise routine. It was so real that you can relate. However, this is also another yoga channel that I practice infrequently because of my weak muscle strength.
I hope you enjoy reading this entry and found at least one of the yoga channel that will work for you from home. There are a lot of benefits of practicing yoga, and I also listed the articles below for your references. However, if you can, I still highly recommend you to take at least one class in the local yoga studio so that you can have the certified yoga teacher to correct your posture during the practice!
Enjoy your practice!
More Readings about Different Types of Yoga
A Beginner’s Guide to 8 Major Styles of Yoga
https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/types-of-yoga/vinyasa-yoga
More Readings about Yoga & Trauma
The Role of Yoga in Healing Trauma
It’s Offocial! Yoga Helps Depression
Practicing Yoga And Meditation Reverses The DNA Damage That Makes Us Sick And Depressed
It Works: New Study Outlines What Meditation, Yoga, & Prayer Can Do To The Human Body
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