Learnings and connections

Last month (February 2025) I attended a five day in-person Yin yoga course taught by Olivia Clarke in Monmouthshire. It was good – I learnt and I enjoyed. This was more than 20 years after I attended my first specific Yin yoga training (co-taught by Paul Grilley and Sarah Powers).

It is crucial for teachers to keep learning. That cliché is true: forever a student. Obviously, there are many ways to learn: our own personal practice, going to classes, reading books, listening to podcasts, attending retreats, participation on trainings. For me, it is essential that I am being fed (and challenged) to avoid traps such as burning out and complacency. Making sure that this is a consistent part of what we are doing needs to be a priority.

Last year, I did a weekend training in Yin yoga with Nadine Watton in Edinburgh. Again good; again learning – and again in-person. I do think that the possibilities of in-person learning can be deeper than online. Depths of relationships can be more profound than the removed forms (such as online relationships, such as practising to recorded material, such as subscribing to an app). Within this, there could be a greater complexity of relationship and a more conscious connection.

Prior to the pandemic, people would occasionally ask me to teach online – and I refused. Suddenly in mid-March 2020, that was all I was doing: teaching online. Honestly, I was really surprised at how well connections could be made on Zoom. Yet for myself it is not as positive and beneficial as in-person. But having said that, I do still teach two monthly workshops online; and I also have online recorded classes via Movement For Modern Life. I definitely appreciate how these live online and online recordings help people to access practices and teachings.

The last five-day course I taught online was November 2024 – and that was the last one. Not again. I felt drained by spending five days looking at the screen and engaging with participants without physical proximity. I know that there are many advantages to online learning: it can be done from the comfort of one’s own home; frequently it is cheaper; it can more readily fit around commitments such as childcare; it can be done when the participant feels under the weather or is restricted from travelling. Plenty of pluses. A teacher told me: “I have taught in-person trainings where folks have felt very disengaged despite my best efforts – and online trainings where bonds are formed, student input is to the max and some really great relationships are forged.”

This is so true: we all learn differently. One example: I love reading books yet I know that some people (because of a wide variety reasons including dyslexia and visual impairment) do not read. Some people learn a lot on their own; some people learn better in groups. I do think that quite often there can be more depth in the learning when we are in the same room as each other. We see the whole body (rather than seeing a one dimensional rectangle). We can get what could be described as room service – such as a sandbag on sacrum or a belt around hips. We do not have to worry about how well the technology is going to work. We can more easily dialogue (instead of chat bars, the wonders of face-to face-conversations). This proximity has more potential to be healing. And by being together in that same room (and the changing room and a local café), this can help to undermine hierarchies, encourage peer discussions and lessen guru cult tendencies.

According to Uma Dinsmore-Tuli: “There is a risk that the move online makes content more vulnerable to extraction from the relationships that support it and can actually devalue the teachings.” I agree. She then wrote: “Online content is also a well-known vector for devaluing creatives and funnelling money, power and control to the platform providers.” A great example of this is Spotify. Obviously, there is an enormously vast gap between Spotify and a yoga teacher teaching their own classes online. However, there is Gaia and its very large provision of online yoga classes. Gaia’s current market value is $115 million with revenues last year of $85 million; the CEO is paid about $440,000 a year and owns 4% of the company. Gaia seems to perhaps have ambitions of becoming a Spotify of yoga teaching.

Seeing someone’s eyes is substantially different from seeing someone’s screen. Pausing and breathing feels much different in-person than online. Offering advice can be significantly clearer in-person than online. Making space for challenges could be more easily done in-person than online. One teacher said to me: “In person is SO much more rewarding…It concerns me that more and more yoga is going online. It’s certainly convenient and cheaper but do we want to nourish ourselves on convenience food?”

Digital platforms do fragment our attention; meaningful engagement is replaced by increasing social isolation and the diminishing of more human connections. Online yoga teaching is just a small fragment of this bigger picture. However, as teachers, it is necessary for us to always consider the implications and the consequences of what we are doing and how we are teaching.

A teacher who does both ways of teaching wrote: “As a training provider who divides my work equally between online and in-person, I recognise that online trainings provide vital access to learning for people who simply cannot attend in person… Online trainings don’t work when they simply replicate the form and timings of in person events: this is why we don’t do ‘intensives’ online, instead our online trainings are often split into weekly segments, and always include pair work, small mentor groups and large circles.” All online trainings need – and this is a non-negotiable in my view – to have space where participants can meet away from the teacher (such as breakout rooms).

This is from a yoga teacher who home educates her two children: “I have quite positive feelings about online study as a student (as a facilitator – no). I rely heavily on online learning for not just myself but especially for the kids…The democratisation of study and learning is a thing to aspire to. Within reason of course as we still need to earn a living…I have benefitted a lot from free parenting and psychology podcasts via streaming services that have really supported me as a human raising a couple of humans and also helped my teaching practice.”

By contrast, another long-term teacher who teaches both in-person and online simply said: “Online is not the real thing.” For another teacher: “There are many things that online cannot offer and I think that one of the things it cannot do in the same way is enable personal growth and change. I think that something magical happens when people share teachings and experiences in a room and while there is some opportunity for this online, it is stifled.” In my own teaching, I use recordings (of classes and other material). And I know that vibrant communities have been co-created solely online and that valid connections have been made that then continue in-person (which are supported by ongoing online relationships).

Yet digital does flatten our interactions. Human culture is increasingly dominated by computers and their algorithms – yet neither nature nor embodiment exist in cyberspace. Despite the facades, primarily this is a more limited and superficial experience and online existence can be claustrophobic and conformist.

There will be objections to this view. What I request is that those objecting sincerely look at their circumstances. Maybe they teach online because: they are living in a remote area, they have a preference as to how they engage with people, there is a belief that this is the best way to connect to a wider range of people. It is also true that I have an aversion to technology – and that I am technologically inept. These factors influence my feelings.

Teaching online undoubtedly has its values. Online interactions can be both a lifeline and rewarding for both teacher and participant. However my experience and belief is that being together in the same room can be much better. I feel that we as teachers need to keep learning until the day that we die and that one of the best ways this can be done is through physical proximity. Human beings survive and thrive by being together. We need embodied practices. We can flourish more when we are sharing space with each other.