Kino Videos, good ones

OK, I admit, I  find Yoga girls of Miami and the Oprah pitch unwatchable too. Having done a little TV and radio in the past I empathise, always sounded better at the time or when on the page. Whatever, we move on.

But then we have this below on Kapo



or this on Vrschikasana



and there are 35 of these HOW TO videos on YouTube so far

....as a home Ashtangi (ish) I'm lapping these up.

But my favourites ....and I was waiting for the last part before doing this post, are these on 'An average Monday practice'.

Here we have a Certified Ashtanga instructor working through their practice ....unedited. You watch the Swenson, Freeman, Scott, Lino and Kino's own DVD's and they're all nicely polished flowing practices. Watching these below, I feel like I'm in the shala watching somebodies private practice. It's incredibly intimate at times it's almost as if your watching the thought process as she works her practice. My overall impression watching these was of the craft. We always refer to it as practice but I want throw an alternative out there, two alternatives, the craft and/or the work.

As a Woodwind Repairer I like the 'work' best, used as a noun. When we're making a replacement key or a tool, while it's coming together we refer to it as the work. Working the work, crafting the work....

The other impression I get is recognition. This is how I approach my practice, constantly working on it tweaking it, approaching postures differently, trying things out. Is that how everyone practices at the shala's, at home? I wouldn't know, I've only really practiced at home so that's another reason I love these.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4


If and when part 5 turns up I'll post it here.

Kapo ankles back thanks to Vinyasa Krama Bow sequence

*This post is dedicated to a friend who's not so well at the moment and can't practice. Can imagine she's feeling like it's all slipping away. I thought my heels, let alone my ankles were long gone in kapo but there they were again, between my calves and my feet, just where I left them. Get well C.

After being away in Wales, revisiting the Vinyasa Krama sequences, I came back and practiced my first Ashtanga 2nd series in a fortnight, felt liked I'd been hit by a truck. It was scrappy and undisciplined. This wasn't perhaps surprising as I'd only practiced a handful of 2nd's in the last few months. If I'm only going to practice it once a week it needed tidying up. Two weeks of Intermediate later and it's a lot cleaner but throughout the last two weeks, kapo has been pretty lame, my hands coming down in front of my feet and only managing to walk them in half way up my feet.

Sunday, I joyfully practiced Vinyasa Krama, long long practice, Asymmetric, Seated leading up to lots of leg behind head postures, same thing yesterday, postures felt deeper, more comfortable. This morning was the turn of backbends, Bow and Meditative sequence plus some extra work around Eka pada raja Kapotasana, Eka pada kapo....

My first Kapo landed half way up my feet, the second I grabbed my heels. I filmed the third and caught my ankles. I put it down to the extra prep in Bow sequence. There's a little in 2nd series of course, bit of a build up, nine postures to be exact (actually that's not fair there are also seven upward dogs). In Vinyasa Krama's Bow sequence there are thirty-five, that's a lot of preparation.



It's something I like about Vinyasa Krama, the gradual build up, the deepening of postures as you work through the subroutines and sequences, whether it's the twists, the forward bends and leg behind head postures or the backbend. Or Lotus, where you have twenty hip openers and half lotuses before you reach full lotus.

Begs the question though, why do thirty-five postures as prep for kapo when you can get away with nine ( lot of Ashtangi's have beautiful kapo's). Well, it is an intense posture, one of the most intense, makes sense to work your way into it especially if your going to take that further into even more intense backbends. Ashtanga recognises this, kapo at least gets that nine posture lead in. Leg behind head only gets four in 2nd series and the same in 3rd against, what, twenty-four in VK.

I'm not saying one style is better than another just highlighting the differences, both have their ... issues but if your struggling with kapo or your lotus, or getting your leg behind your head then you might like to moonlight a little, especially if your practicing at home.

If you do get stuck at Kapo or Marichyasana D or at getting your leg behind your head in Eka pada sirsasana, or getting into Lotus at the end of Primary or, indeed, dropping back and coming up, it may well be that your not ready for those postures but it might also be that you could just do with a couple more prep poses to lead into them. Before you give up on yoga and I received an email on this very topic earlier in the week, it might be something to consider.

If your practicing at home, those extra postures, just like those variations of the postures in David Swenson's book, for us, at home, they take the place of Shala assists.

Update.
Come to think of it, I think this must be one of my deepest Kapo's ever. Just searched my blog for the any other picture I had of an ankles kapo, found one from March 2010. That's it on the left and this mornings on the right.

How does that work, a month of merely clinging to your toes and then boom, top of ankles.

Vatyanasana ( Karakasa? )

M. says this pose

... reminded her of a Karakasa

In Japanese folklore, the Karakasa is a haunted umbrella distinguished by its single eye and human leg. It may also possess arms and a long, slimy tongue!

Practice too long? More Mingus ( Goodbye pork Pie Hat ) some Pres and Lady day

Another excellent practice this morning but too long for daily practice. Asana ran to two and a half hours this morning and that's before pranayama and skimping a little on the Inversions.

One of the main reasons I have for practicing Vinyasa Krama rather than Ashtanga is that I can explore a group of postures more deeply, bring in more prep poses, stay in the key ones longer and then develop and explore the more advanced options. Yesterday and today I was exploring too many groups, nice for a holiday practice but not everyday.

So back to how I worked it before, a couple of days focusing on back bends but with  some good counterposes and then a couple of days of Forward bends/ Leg behind head postures with some drop backs as counters. ( and obviously the usual Standing and finishing postures).

A bit more on the Mingus approach from yesterday. It would be nice to spend six to ten long slow breaths in each and every posture of course and you could do that by practicing less postures but the approach I want to take here is to explore an area of practice more deeply. Yeah I can throw my leg behind my head cold, did Dwi pada sirsasana at work in jeans one afternoon, after lunch too, but I like the idea of opening the hips up as much as possible, all those wonderful Asymmetric postures and then going into the LBH work and developing it into the more advanced versions, same with backbends, that nice Bow sequence build up. So I merely visit the prep poses, 3-5 breaths let them build upon each other and then when I get to the key postures really inhabit them, slow the breathing right down, longer and longer inhalations and exhalations before picking it back up again with a number of counter poses and doing that a few times within a practice.



This song, Goodbye Pork Pie hat, story goes, Mingus and his band were playing a gig when they heard that Lester Young  died. The band started to play and this song kind of evolved on stage. Not sure that's true. I also heard that Mingus wrote it as an elegy for Lester a few months after he died, like the former story better. Oh, Lester famously wore a Pork pie hat.
Keep coming back to this idea of practice as a Sax solo, still form and structure but within that, room for improvisation, should develop this. Sequences as keys, subroutines as chords, patterns II-V-I.... OK, perhaps not.

Perhaps that's why I keep coming back to Vinyasa Krama though, Ashtanga's a little too formal, too Apollonian want me some of that Dionysian Jazz. It's just asana for heavens sake, whats wrong with a little, play, a pinch of creativity, a shake of exploration.... always been a place for dance in the devotional.

You get that I'm deliberately leaving that open so you can convince me there's room for dance in Ashtanga too, right?



" I don't think I ever sing the same way twice. I don't think I sing the same tempo twice, one night it's a little slow, then next night a little bit brighter, depending on how I feel".  Billie Holiday

First sax solo is Ben Webster then it's my man Lester ( Pres ) next up is Gerry Mulligan on Bari sax then Coleman Hawkins... who isn't playing on this track.

Yoga and the Blues anyone?

Mingus Mingus Mingus

I think of this as a Mingus approach to practice, messin' with the tempo. Some of the subroutines I take relatively quickly (but ashtanga tempo so not that quick), the Asymmetric subroutine's, moving through them five breaths a posture, treating them as prep for the leg behind head postures in which I slow down the tempo ( what I'm thinking of as Vinyasa Krama tempo), stay longer, elongate the exhalation, inhalation before shifting back to  a slightly faster tempo for the seated sequence, slowing again at Dwi pada and yoga nidrasana and so on throughout the practice.

Different days I could slow the tempo for different postures treating them as prep postures one day, main event postures another . So one day Janu sirsasana could be a prep posture another day I could practice it as maha mudra and stay for ten long slow breaths with retention each leg.

A rough sketch of this morning's practice would be.....

10m short Tadasana subroutine
Sury namaskara's
Some Triangle and On one leg subroutines

Asymmetric subroutines leading to Leg behind head postures
Seated subroutines ( spread angle ) leading to Dwi pada sirsasana and Yoga Nidrasana

Bow sequence leading up to Viparita Salambhasana  and gandha Bherundasana
Ustrasana, Kapotasana, Eka pada raja kapotasana vinyasa's.
Hanumanasana
Dropbacks

Long paschimottanasana
Badha konasana
Kandapindasa, yoga Dandasana work

Inversions
Lotus subroutines

Pranayama
Pratyahara
Meditation

Loved this, little extra time to practice this morning but also tomorrow (Bank holiday) and Tuesday (day off)  so I can play with this approach a little. Think I can get it down to 120 minutes which would make it a daily morning practice.

As with Ashtanga 2nd series I'm covering the areas I want to work on daily but with more VK flexibility for prep and development.

* Will come back to this post and add links to illustrate

Yoga Bookshelves

I noticed my own shelf is getting a little cramped and starting to spill over. Then I became curious about what's on other people yoga bookshelves, or pile or bedside table. A thought struck me, how about I do a post called yoga bookshelves and people send me a picture of their own bookshelf or perhaps a link to flikr or something. And of course if we see something on somebody's shelf that we're curious about we can ask about it.

This is not a competition to see who has the most yoga books, my own has a lot of random stuff picked up in charity shops that isn't great and that I should probably take back to where I got them from. A small pile of books you love and use a lot is of course worth as much if not more than a bunch of books you'll never pick up again. Don't worry if your books aren't stacked all together neatly, a couple of shots of a couple of piles will be fine too. And of course is can be anonymous, in fact I like that idea, lets do that, anonymous yoga bookshelves.

Be nice if we can get at least ten pictures of bookshelves here to get it started, think once we get ten it'll hopefully take on a life of it's with own other pictures turning up every once in a while as readers stumble across the post.

Good quality pictures if possible so we can zoom in and read the titles. My address is always under 'contact me' which is under 'About me' over on the left but here it is again grimmly2007 and that's a t google dot com

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Some of the contributors of these pictures have done their own post on this, here are the links.

Mayaland

Ryogini

Serene Flavorful

Pakistani Ashtangi

Journeys

Untitled

...did I miss anybody out?

No closing date for this so feel free to send a picture in anytime.

So Sharath's in London....

So Sharath's in London and tomorrow's my day off and besides I have to be in town for dinner in the evening anyway, perhaps I could catch a class.

I knew the Primary would be full but thought there might be the chance of dropping in for the Intermediate. My Vinyasa's a little rusty...all right a lot but I can follow a count and I can pretty much do the postures or thought I could, until I found out yesterday that my drop from headstand was all wrong. No doubt I would have been sent to stand in the corner at some point but that would have been OK, be nice to catch the atmosphere.

Anyway, checked out the website and it seems you have to book and get passes and pay by cheque...something I vaguely remember from my childhood, involves something quaint called a signature.

So I guess that won't be happening.

Probably best, really suffered through 2nd this morning. Not sure I like rest days, took Saturday and creaked a bit through Sunday but it was OK, tolerable. Today though was painful, backbends didn't want to play ball and I only just managed to get my leg behind my head, did I really use to do Budhasana and Kapilasana?

Still, I think I said I was expecting the aches and pains to come at the end of last week so not too surprised, think I'll do some light Vinyasa Krama on Saturday though, too old to take a rest day.

One interesting thing. Karandavasana. To catch up, my Karandavasana is sort of OK always manage to land it and take it back up first try but it's squished, my chin ends up just off the mat as I push up making the exit untidy. So how oh how to unsquish.

Been thinking about it for a long time but last week I came across this video by yuyasarashina



There's a moment around 30 seconds in, blink and you'll miss it, where he hashis lotus on his arms and just before he takes it back up, he does something with his shoulders, kind of like he lifts his shoulder blades and gets ready to push out through the arms as he raises his lotus. Now I've always just lifted my lotus and then tried to straighten my arms or I imagine just raising it back up will take my arms up with it or something.

Anyway tried it yesterday and again this morning and something happened, arms started to straighten just a little chest lifted a little....something is going on, so there's hope. Thought about videoing it after practice this morning but I was too knackered.

The Seven deadlies, 2nd series headstands. UPDATED with 'distinct' chaturanga

Revisiting the seven deadlies, now I'm back doing 2nd series, for some reason I decided to do the full drop from headstand. I was surprised at how slow and controlled it was dropping down, had expected more of a clunk.

The drop
A couple of years back I had started doing a half drop, bringing the legs slowly down to pike and then dropping from there. The main reason was that it was a lot quiter on my floorboards of a morning but I figured it was probably gentler on the toes too.

The full drop from headstand can be a little daunting, the half version less so  but I think there's also something about lowering the legs half way that sets you up for a more controlled drop which you can then shift to the full drop.

I'm engaging my bandhas ( clenching your butt and sucking in your belly is the simplest way to describe that, gets a little more subtle as you explore the bandhas more but it's enough to be going on with) and pushing down into the mat as I drop which slows the descent, sucks some of the energy out of the drop and gives me time to bring my hands into position.

The hands
The hand thing can be tricky. I used to balance on my head for a moment (fraction of a second) while I started to move my hands, kind of get ahead of the game if you like.

The Entry
I've seen a few different versions of this, I do it Chuck style, stepping in lowering one knee then the other before getting my hands in position but I've seen a little mini jump to both knees. Kino has a neat version, she pretty much stays in down dog lowers her head, then brings her arms into position.

Going up
You can go up one leg at a time or bring your knees to your chest and push up from there but the float up is nice. The trick to floating up is walking in as close as you can bringing your hips over your shoulders, as you lean back a little your legs pretty much start to go up on their own, although your belly strength will have to do the rest of the work.

The trickiest one is baddha haste Sirsasana C or the 6th one with your hands in pincha but it's just a case of walking in even further, try it with the wall behind you to get over the fear of falling backwards. Talking of pincha mayurasana, I saw somebody float up into that in a video recently. Tried it this morning and can't for the life of me imagine how she did it....my new project. Must ask if she minds me posting it here, quite beautiful

Here then are my current seven deadlies with the full drop and below that the half drop, gentler, quieter version that I used for a couple of years.





STOP PRESS
V just told me in comments that I should be landing in a distinct chaturanga. Surely this is something that's changed over the years, no? NO?

I skimmed through my iTunes Ashtanga movie playlist, Jois led 2nd from Yogaworks? Nooooo,  Chaturanga. Kino? Chaturanga. Swensen, surely our David, old school and all that, nope Chaturanga (you let me down David) ...chaturanga, chaturanga, CHATURANGA,

Bugger, my bad.

OK, so not everything changes.

Here then is my first, long overdue, attempt at a 'distinct' chaturanga landing ....fresh from a very hot bath.



Elbows could be less splayed perhaps, but close enough?

Stories : Saxophones to Yoga mats

My friend and I had visited a music shop on the Charing Cross road, She'd wanted to play a flute, bored, I asked to try a clarinet. We were killing time waiting for an interview she had that afternoon with Cosmopolitan magazine. Just after we left the shop,  as we crossed the road, I narrowly missed being run over by a car, it was going much too quickly and I'd have most likely been killed outright.

I went Straight back to the music shop and bought the Clarinet.

That was the second Clarinet I'd blown, the first was owned by a Young Sicilian chef called Leo. He'd bought a gun over to England in the instruments case, and used to keep it in his locker. I remember one night I had to stop him from going to get the gun so he could shoot a customer who had complained that there wasn't enough cheese on his pizza.

Leo would teach me the notes while the other chefs smoked outside.

The first saxophone I blew was kept under a lovers bed, she hadn't blown it since her teens but had brought it to University with her in the hope of taking it up again. We took the same philosophy class, Kant. I'd sit naked at the end of her bed blowing the same five bluesy notes from the restaurant, no doubt imaging I was quite the existentialist.

I sold my first saxophone to visit my future wife in Hong Kong after the Drug Research, company wouldn't allow me to join any more studies.

A few years later we popped into a small music shop in Osaka, that had a Tenor saxophone in the window. I blew those same five notes, no doubt it sounded awful but she got that melted look in her eye and lent me the money to buy the saxophone.

In Japan the flats and houses have futon cupboards, I used to sit in ours while teaching myself to play and read music. When the weather became unbearably hot I would cycle down to the river in the early morning to practice, sometimes under bridges or in the portable toilets for the sake of th echo.

We moved to Kyoto a year later beside the Kamo river and for two years, every morning, I would go down to the river, stand under the bridge and practice for two hours. The picture is from the bridge under which I played, rain sleet or snow, cutting the fingers off my gloves in the winter.

Later, when we had a house, I would practice in the mornings as well as the evening, as soon as I got in the doors. My job, training teachers, was something I just did between practice sessions.

We went to New York on holiday but mainly so I could  buy a Selmer's MkVI from Roberto's on 52 street. I'd fantasise about playing nights at the Village Vanguard, like Sonny and Dexter and Coltrane.



I came back to England to become a Woodwind Repairer. I wanted to play all the different vintage saxophones, the King Super 20's, Conn's, Martin Top hats, the Grafron and of course the Selmer's. I figured I'd never be able to afford all those classic saxophones but as a repairer then they might come to me...they did.

Four years ago we were burgled, I had seven saxophones stolen from under my bed including the Mark 6 from New York and the Super 20 I'd restored after it was fished out of the New Orleans floods. It had previously been painted pink and hung on the wall of a New Orleans nightclub.

Five of the saxophones were returned by the police but not the Mk 6, that was sold in a Portobello Market along with my Mk VII tenor for £250.

Annoyed with myself for feeling angry about the theft, a month later I took up Ashtanga yoga.


I've practice almost every day since, often twice but picked up my saxophone perhaps a handful of times.

Last year I sold my rare prized Grafton so I could spend a month in Los Angeles Studying Vinyasa Krama Yoga with Ramaswami.

And now Primary feels the stranger

First week back playing Ashtanga 'by the rules' for a long while, full 2nd series Sunday to Thursday and I've just finished my Friday Primary, hell, I'm even going to take the Saturday rest day tomorrow.

Beginning of the week was a little tough, hot, sweaty, messy 2nd series practice, second half of the week with my new patented heart rate focus was better, more on the breath, much better.

Something's changed in my attitude to 2nd I, It's going to take a while to work out what that is exactly but there's certainly a shift in perspective. Never really liked 2nd that much, always resented it for not being Primary and it's always been hard work, that was OK though, love the warrior narrative, me. In the second half of the week though it was all much calmer. It still felt a long practice but I approached it in a more matter-of-fact way. Kapo, Dwi pada, Karanadavasana, they stood out less, the different sections of the practice were more... well sections but part of a whole.

Let me step back a second, when I say I always found it hard, I don't mean the postures exactly, not saying they were easy, spent a lot of time working them out but compared to  many I've been lucky, turns out I'm more flexible than I expected to be in all the right places. I mean hard in the series as a whole, just an uphill battle, confronting and defeating one foe (read posture) after another such that I've never, until now, been able to relax with the series. There's was always a girding of the loins when I stepped on the mat.

I still don't find it as meditative as Primary but I'm much relaxed about it, it's just practice.

Did I say primary was meditative? Not this morning. The week had gone fine, no aches or pains until this morning,  creaked going into all the forward bends and really felt the hip openers. If 2nd came together this week then Primary was all over the place, disjointed, no flow to it.... it felt a bit of a stranger or is that the stranger, out of place.

But that's OK it's given me a plan for my evening Vinyasa Krama with it's short asana practice. Had wondered how I was going to choose the asana subroutines but now I'll pick them to support and extend my morning Ashtanga. During the week when I practicing 2nd series I can work on some of the Forward bending and hip opening subroutines in VK that I don't practice that often and then on Friday when I'm practicing primary in the morning I can do some of the VK backbends.

Find I'm quite looking forward to another week of 2nd, I believe Sharath is in town next week or is it the one after, be nice if he did another of those live streams but this time of 2nd, be interesting to see how it looks this year. Might fish out the 1980's Jois led 2nd from yoga works next week, perhaps towards the end of the week or not, its going well, perhaps its best not to mess with that for a bit.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

I'm a repairer though, can't help tweaking things, modifying things...

You got to be kidding me, Yoga Niche blogs?

Stumbled upon a guide to creating your yoga 'niche' blog and how you can sell something on your nice new blog or, if you don't have anything to sell, why then you can sell advertising. And get this, if you don't actually feel like writing a post for your blog you can hire somebody to do that for you based on the yoga key words guaranteed to make you the largest pots of money.

I remember on the business element of of my TT course the teacher ( not Ramaswami thankfully, don't think he wanted anything to do with this yoga alliance requirement), just after trying to get us to do a yoga elevator speech ( I declined, preferring to take the stairs ), it was suggested we start a blog and write posts on something topical,  Yoga for the troops in Afghanistan, say.

And recently my company asked me if I'd mind writing a blog for them on repairing woodwind, instruments seeing as I have such blogging experience. Clearly a promotional idea and needless to say I politely declined.

You can tell blogging is being taken more seriously, I'm regularly having to turn down requests to promote products, the only one I think I've actively promoted is Manduka but that's because I use their mats and towels everyday ( as it happens I seem to have upset them recently, I didn't think much of their new range of towels and said so and a little too strongly ). Oh and Tara books, I've posted on them, but that's just because It's a tiny company and I  found their books to be beautiful ....and of course Claudia's book over there on the right, but then It's Claudia, she's a friend.

More and more spammers, the worst kind, seeming to comment on a post but just so they can get their link in. Oh and teachers who just happen to drop into every comment how experienced they are and pretty much their whole yogic biography, irritating.

And then there's the advertising creeping into blogs more and more, google adwords, affiliates, shops, boutiques.... a little depressing. I used to love that Amazon box on blogs where the blogger could show which books they're reading or something they had read recently that they thought their readers might like. Was going to set one up here but then realised it was an affiliate, you get a couple of bucks every time a reader buys a book via your link. It's a slippery slope, you start off with a mention of a book your really like and then you end up adding a book to every post and then finally writing a post just so you can add a book link. Which comes back to writing posts about yoga for some poor bugger whole lost an arm in Afghanistan just to increase your traffic.

Obviously I'm not suggesting everyone who has an affiliate on their blog is selling out, some of my favourite bloggers, many who I admire and respect with mat bags full of integrity have them. You can usually tell the dodgy blogs, look a little too professional, too many pastils shades.

I had a Paypal 'donate' button on here once, was adding gadgets all over the place and thought why not, titled it Help me get to Mysore or something like that. Had this idea that somebody super rich in CA who would obviously be into yoga would have nothing better to do with their money than send me off to India. Not proud of it, what happen, of course, was a couple of yogi's out there sent me a couple of little donations, really nice, kind and thoughtful of them. They'd obviously been to Mysore themselves and thought I should go as well. In fact a very famous Ashtanga teacher send me a small donation too, was really touched by that. Felt guilty about it and took the donate button down. If I ever do go to Mysore the main reason will probably be because I still feel I owe it to those handful of generous yogi's.

I shouldn't write this stuff, it's just me, I'm too damned idealistic sometimes and clearly have a hang up about money, I was brought up on Tony Curtis movies, what can I say. I don't know I see the blogs as kriya yoga... wouldn't it be nice, if just somewhere money didn't come into it... at all.

Anyway, here's the depressing niche yoga post in full ( actually I removed about fifty links), I'm hoping the writer won't mind as I'm giving him a plug by reposting it and besides there's about forty share buttons at the bottom of the post.

Yoga Niche: How to Create Your Yoga Niche Blog in Easy Steps

Posted on December 7th, 2010 by Gerry Lacuarta in Featured, Health, Niches

If you search on Google for the term “yoga“, you will get almost 85 million search results, a staggering number which just shows how much content is out there on yoga. And this content is feeding millions of people hungry for information on yoga and its health benefits.

If you want to tap into the yoga niche market, the first step you need to do is do keyword and market research, and in this article I will list down some keyword and market data about the yoga niche. In the end, we will create a yoga niche blog that will generate traffic and leads to your yoga information products. If you don’t have a yoga niche product to sell, we can take a look at some yoga products we can promote, or turn your blog into a product in itself and make money from yoga ads on Google Adsense.


Yoga keywords

yoga mat

yoga video

yoga apparel

yoga teacher training

yoga equipment

yoga videos

yoga mats

yoga clothing

nude yoga

yoga accessories

yoga clothes

hatha yoga

yoga pants

yoga meditation

yoga poses

yoga books

yoga teacher

bikram yoga

yoga supplies

ashtanga yoga

naked yoga

yoga certification

yoga dvd

learn yoga


Yoga Advertisers

Yoga advertisers

• amazon.com
• inspirationyogainstitute.com
• dharmastudio.com
• downdogart.com
• ashtangayogari.com
• yogabydesign.us
• spiritwinds.net
• zamkara-yoga-shop.de

Yoga advertising

Did you know what the average cost per click for the yoga keywords is between 37 to 92 cents, and “yoga” ads generate 2.8 to 3.5 thousand clicks per day.

Building a yoga niche blog with wordpress

Now that we have made the keyword and market research, it’s time to build our WordPress blog. First thing you need to do is install WordPress and these are the plugins I would recommend:

• XML Sitemap
• All in One SEO
• Askimet
• Insights

Next step is to create your blog categories based on the keywords. Depending on the theme of your blog, your categories can target general yoga niche terms or specific yoga techniques or products.

You could target:

• Thai Yoga Massage
• Yoga DVDs
• Yoga Wear
• Akasha Yoga
• Bare Yoga
• Vinsaya Yoga
• Bikra Yoga
• Ashtanga Yoga
• Yoga Studio
• Aerobic Yoga

Content Sources

The best content for your Yoga niche blog would be original articles that you will have to write. If you do not feel confident enough to write about the topic, you can hire freelance writers on Odesk orElance and have them write 10 articles each targeting a keyword or keyphrase.

You can also get Yoga PLR articles and rewrite them to make them at least 70% unique.

For images and videos, you can go to stock photo sources such as SXC.hu and YouTube.com. If you find good yoga photos on Flickr, you can ask the creator for permission to use the yoga photo for your website.

Yoga Domains

It’s recommended that you build your yoga niche blog on its own domain. You can go to GoDaddy Auctions and search for expired yoga domain that have pagerank or backlinks. Or you can go to your domain registrar and get a new domain name that contains keywords.

Share and Enjoy:

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