On Yoga Journal and The Business of Yoga

As the founder of a company that focuses on providing software for yoga studios, I had always assumed that Yoga Journal would be a natural place for our company to advertise, as well as participate at their conferences. We viewed them as an industry leader that helps spot new trends in the world of yoga, and an organization we could work with to spread the word about our product.

As it turns out, we were wrong.

Tula Software has recently been informed that we will not be allowed to participate at the New York yoga journal conference because MINDBODY, an existing corporate sponsor currently valued at $450 million - fresh off a $50 million fundraising round - has been able to create a blockade from any other software company presenting at their shows.

When I questioned why a mutual competitor of ours was able to participate at the San Francisco trade show, (a show I went to in order to prepare for the New York show that I thought we'd be able to go to) I was informed that this was a mistake for which someone within Yoga Journal organization had been reprimanded.

Is this what Yoga Journal has become? Beholden to the sponsors that can throw the most cash at them? And if so, does this really bode well for the yoga community at large?

Where should it stop? Should celebrity yogis be able to keep new, upcoming yogis from gracing the Yoga Journal stages for fear of competition? Should world renowned retreat centers be able to elbow out smaller, more intimate retreat locales by throwing in tens of thousands of dollars in sponsorships? Should Teeki pants be kept out of the show because Tara Stiles will be on stage in New York and she sponsors for Reebok?

Where does it end? How fair is this to the people who pay upwards of $1,000 for an event ticket, presumably because they think they're getting access to the best that yoga industry has to offer. 

And by the way, why can our ads show up on the Yoga Journal website but our table cannot appear at their conference?

Now, I understand business and appreciate the concept of exclusive partnerships. But this is not McDonalds having a deal to only sell Coca Cola. Yoga Journal is a news outlet of sorts. What they DO, supposedly, is share information about the yoga community, with the yoga community.

Well, apparently as long as you're not competing with one of their platinum sponsors anyway.

This is an anti-competitive practice and is akin to Yoga Journal allowing only Lululemon to sell yoga pants at their conferences. 

On Yoga Journal's website they say:

20.4 million people in the United States now practice yoga, while practitioner spending has grown to $10.3 billion a year. And while more people are practicing yoga than ever before, the real reason for Yoga Journal's continued success is remaining true to its original mission: give readers thoughtful, well-researched articles on yoga, filled with the most current scientific information available, while honoring the 5,000-year-old tradition on which it is based.

May I ask a few questions? Is computer science not science? Is software not transforming the yoga industry like it is transforming every other industry? Does Yoga Journal really believe that a TEN BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY can be served by one single software maker?

Really?

Because if they don't, then they are actively doing something that they know not to be in the best interest of the community they serve.

Is actively preventing new organizations from sharing their latest technology with the Yoga Journal community not in direct opposition to their stated mission?

I think it's fair to ask: Is Yoga Journal, as an organization, practicing the values they preach? Are these values not openness, fairness and accessibility to everything that the yoga community offers?

Our company has helped independent yoga studios around the world grow their businesses.

We were born when my wife opened her yoga studio, and our small team has made a software product that now helps countless studios run their businesses, stay in business and spread the love of yoga.

We're the only software on the market made exclusively for yoga studios and we've done this through organic growth without raising a single dime of outside funding.

And yet apparently, for Yoga Journal, none of this is enough to make us worthy of participating at their shows.

We had hoped Yoga Journal might be the great equalizer that would allow us to go head to head in the same place with industry titans. We thought they would welcome us, and all of our competitors too, because technology has so much to offer the yoga community.

But we were wrong. They've turned out to be an industry gatekeeper, not an industry conduit.

And it's certainly worth asking the question, if they're doing this to us, who else are they doing this to?

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NOTE: If you or someone you know runs a yoga publication or event looking for sponsors, please get in touch.

Yoga Roundup XVIII: Feb. 23 – Mar. 1, 2014

The Week’s Top Yoga News, According to the People at Tula Software

If Yoga, Paint by Numbers and Twister Had a Baby…

You would get Yoga by Numbers, a new yoga mat created by Elizabeth Morrow that helps take the “guesswork” out of where to put your hands and feet during a pose.

In 2012 after suffering from blood clots that caused a partial lung collapse, she was put on blood thinners, which limited her physical capabilities. So, she created the Yoga by Numbers mat with Jade Yoga and put out online tutorials that guide your poses by telling you what numbers to place your feet and hands on. The videos have found success with people who have disabilities, are far away from a yoga studio or just need very thorough direction. Morrow hopes to have a DVD out in the near future.

The Yogi is in
Thanks to countless studies (you may have seen them on this blog before) on the health benefits of yoga, courses on the practice and how to integrate them into patients’ health routines have become an approved way for doctors to gain needed credits to retain their licenses. NPR writes about Economist Rajan Narayanan one of the founders of the nonprofit Life in Yoga, which has helped train more than 145 doctors and nurses to learn yoga and pass its benefits on to their patients. 

Video: The Yogis of Wall Street
Bloomberg TV anchors and New York’s Ashtanga Yoga founder Eddie Stern discuss the “influence of yoga” on predominant businessmen, bankers and the like and how yoga helps bring out their best qualities and why such powerful figures are turning to the practice. They also discuss how to keep the practice a part of your daily life.  

‘A Model Guru’
Looking to improve your practice? (There’s only one answer here). Self interviewed Yogi and celebrity trainer Yogi Cameron this week to get answers on how to grow your practice and keep it strong. His advice is sound, and he wrote the magazine his answers on the morning of his wedding from a forest in India. Too legit to quit.

What’s in Your Yoga Mat?
After Subway’s fiasco a couple weeks back (see here) a lot of you are probably wondering what the heck your mat is made of. Website Now Toronto breaks down the most popular kinds of yoga mats and grades them. See how your mat chalks up. 

On falling out of practice

I keep falling out of my yoga practice.

I prefer to go to yoga about 4 to 5 times per week, and I've learned that for me, this seems to be the optimal number of practices each week. Its where my happiness seems to be maximized, and I have yet to experience diminished returns. The difference between 6 practices in a week and 7 is pretty small, but I can really feel the difference between 3 classes in a week and 4.

But the last few weeks I've only been going about once per week.

Why is this? 

100% of the time I go to yoga I feel great, and I'm happy I went. I regret going to yoga 0% of the time, and as implied above I'm keenly aware of how my mind and body react to a regular practice.

So how does this happen? 

I have one possible explanation.

Back at the start of January I started the 30 day yoga challenge Maile has each year at her studio. I kicked it off strong and even made it through Days 12 and 13 when I was on a trip out to San Francisco.

I missed day 14 though and fell out of the challenge. Shortly after that my practice slowed and ever since the middle of January I've only been making it to practice once a week.

I think maybe these two events are related.

Maybe by failing to finish the challenge, it made subsequent practices less important. As the individual classes became less important, my weekly number of practices became less important too. (I only went twice last week, it doesn't matter if I only go once this week)

The thing is though, this happens not just in yoga, but in life.

You're saving money, but slip up a few times, and so then slip up some more because hey, you already slipped up anyway. We haven't talked with our friends in a while, and so we don't call them until we have time to talk for a lengthy conversation. And of course it's harder to find an hour than 10 minutes, and so the calls remain unmade. The same can be said for diets, workouts or business goals.

The antidote then seems to be a combination of forgiveness, intention and effort. Forgiveness for falling out of practice in the first place, the intention to get back into practice, and the effort required to do so. 

No matter what practice we've fallen out of I think the above steps are required, but they don't necessarily have to be difficult.

Being aware of what's happening is often enough.