In Praise of Home Yoga Vids, pt. 2: Yoga with Kassandra and Bad Yogi

Today, blog readers, you’re getting not just one, but two posts on our favorite yoga YouTubers. Susan wrote this morning about Yoga with Adriene, and I’m here to promote a couple of other favorites of mine: Yoga with Kassandra and Bad Yogi. I’ve written about Bad Yogi (aka Erin Motz) in the past, and I admit that I made some critical comments. But no one’s perfect, and I’ve kept going back to Bad Yogi’s videos– several times a week, in fact. I’m here to give you my take on both of their yoga YouTube channels, and of course to solicit your feedback on your favorites– it’s a big YouTube Yoga world out there, so I’m sure there are lots of unearthed jewels to be found.

First, let’s meet Bad Yogi.

She is a very well established online presence, with both a website and a YouTube channel. This means there are loads of free videos to choose from– everything from beginner morning no-sweat yoga (one of my favs) to specific body part focused workouts, to how tos (how to do headstands, for instance). Bad Yogi also labels her workouts as beginner, intermediate, advanced.

What I really love about her approach to online yoga is that she’s lighthearted, with a gentle sense of humor. She conveys her love for yoga at the same time that she’s acknowledging how difficult/silly-looking/awkward some of the processes to get to the poses can be. She also laughs at herself when she misdirects us or says something that she later finds funny; this makes me feel like I’m in a real yoga class with a real person.

In her yoga for better sleep video, Bad Yogi directs us to put a yoga block underneath our sacrums to put legs up in the air. She says something like “put the block so it’s just above the butt crack… Uh, let’s just call it what it is… Put it above the butt so that” and then continues. This always makes me smile as I’m preparing for this relaxing inversion.

Another thing I love about Bad Yogi is that most of her free videos are short- they are generally 12–20 minutes long. I can do just one if I don’t have or want to spend much time, or I can string several of them together for a longer but targeted workout. I’ve done a yoga series of morning flow plus balance plus core plus forward bend, for instance, which was fun and exactly what I wanted. Being able to select from her very organized categories of videos really appeals to me.

One thing that doesn’t appeal to me about Bad Yogi is the non-yoga videos– those about life advice, nutrition, etc. But YMMV. I just ignore those.

Now let’s turn to a yogi of a very different stripe– Kassandra, of Yoga with Kassandra.

I discovered her this summer after discovering yin yoga in Arizona (apparently it’s been going on in other places as well for some time; Who knew?) Kassandra also offers a huge number of free videos with a variety of types of yoga practices. What do I like so much about Kassandra?

First, I like that she emphasizes yin yoga and yin yoga talk in her videos. What does this mean? Uh, I don’t really know, but she emphasizes awareness, calm, letting go of tension, etc. Also, she has a wide variety of yin yoga videos– different time lengths, different areas of the body to focus on, and even different astrological and chakra themes.

Yes, Kassandra is much more woo-woo than Bad Yogi or Yoga with Adriene. I’m not someone who embraces a lot of the spiritual or religious or metaphysical features of some yoga practices, but I enjoy stepping into her world for a bit, experiencing what she offers, and taking away what works for me. Last night I did her 75-minute chakra yin yoga class, and it was just what the doctor ordered after a long day of meetings and then an hour of pushing very hard in physical therapy. I literally laid back (or forward) and let my body go. Here we can see many ways we can use a yoga bolster.

You see what I’m getting at.

So, readers, do you have particular online yoga practitioners that you love? Do you have any experience with the ones we’ve talked about? What do you think? Let us know.