Social Media for Everybody

Next week I'll be leading a workshop series about using social media and covering topics such as how to use Twitter and Facebook, how to set up a blog or do simple website and how to stream video to create webcasts or share live interviews.

"But wait," you say, "Jamine, you're a yoga teacher. How do you know so much about these other things? Can you teach me?" One of the things about how I teach computer stuff is that it's a lot like how I teach yoga stuff. I really believe that anyone can do yoga. I also know anyone can tweet or use Facebook or learn how to do some of the simple multi-media things that make interacting in the interwebs so fun.

I have computers in my history. My father was a computer programmer back in the days when they filled whole rooms. Fun party favours at the Christmas parties were Snoopy cartoons printed out on that wide printer paper using characters to create the shapes. My grandparents gave me a calculator for my tenth birthday. (Okay it's not quite a computer but totally related.)

I did not study computer programming in school but went in to Film and Communications at McGill in the English Department. I was the only one I knew who had a computer. It was an Atari, hooked up to my TV as the monitor. I called home for files using a modem that had my corded phone that jammed and whined into a big thing on my desk.

After university I went to Kripalu, where I was a spiritual lifestyle trainee, and after 3 months of being on a cleaning crew (beds, toilets, mopping, etc.) I was offered a job where I was to teach yoga teachers how to use their computers. "Seriously? I don't know how to do that." "We'll train you," came the answer. It wasn't my only duty as the administration assistant for the Programs Department, but it was one of them. "How do I make it bold again?" came the questions. "What's a desktop?" "I can't find my file!" I would design little workshops for them and train a few people at a time in our tiny computer room.

In my free time I would check my email on GEnie where I'd get letters from my mom in Ottawa and my grandmother in Huntington Beach. (I still get email from them but it comes in colour and with pictures!) I played Tetris until the blocks fell in my sleep. Those Tetris blocks fell in front of my eyes as I watched more than one big name spiritual teacher do his thing. (Sorry Pir Valyat, I could still see you whirl but there were blocks coming down on your head.)

After Kripalu I moved to Omega where I helped implement their first website. I did not choose the domain name, I'm sorry to say because the first one had a hyphen in it and was hard for people to remember (good old www.omega-inst.org). In my lunchtimes during the summer I offered courses for staff in how to "surf the 'net." I bought my first big computer for thousands of bucks and it was supposed to answer my phone and do everything. It was in the back of the trailer I was living in during the summer. I was jamine@AOL.com for a while. You might say I was an "early adopter."

I bought my first laptop computer while I was working at Omega and there was a while where the computer on my lap was worth more than the car I was driving, which I thought was hilarious. (I didn't have the computer on my lap while I was doing the driving, that would be when Chris was driving me to work!)

After Omega I was in South Africa, where I actually tele-commuted back to New York, to complete filling in the summer catalog data into the website. That was expensive because back then, we paid for phone time unlike here, and the connection was slow and it took forever to update the site.

That was 12 years ago. Since then, I've had more computers, offered more training, had the domain Jamine.com, which I let lapse and now sells tea I believe. I've had a cell phone since I moved here back when Telus was Clearnet, and when I got my iPod Touch a few years back I wanted to find a way to get my own data into that little machine and started a company to build apps for that gadget. In fact anyone who's got some text or a photo or sounds can build their own app - it's for anyone!

So when an old yoga student wanted to meet for coffee to talk about computer related stuff and found out more about what I know about these social media he asked if I'd lead a workshop on it. "Are you kidding? I'd love to. This stuff makes my mouth water."

The first series starts next week and goes Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for two weeks. I want people to try things and come back with questions. For this first series we'll be in my living room. If it grows and more people want to learn, maybe we'll find a different spot, but for now it'll be cozy and you're welcome to come!

Getting There...

So the App I've been telling you about is undergoing a change and its new incarnation will be available any minute. We're uploading it to Apple as I type, so when they're through with their process, there will be a new, free app to try. It'll look a lot like the one I've been telling you about but that's because I'm using the same pictures and content.

What's happened is that I've been approved by IRAP (Industrial Research Assistance Program) to hire someone with skillz to do the programming for me. I found him a few months ago and he's been working steadily for the past few weeks while we've been waiting for the official word to come from Toronto that we'll really be okayed. He did not work on the original app. We found out last week that we've been approved and my programmer will actually be paid to build more apps as well as build an interface so you yoga teachers out there can create your own mobile apps for your students.

The new app will be available when Apple has reviewed it. The status we just saw on the screen said "In Review." Whoohoo!

Next steps are to finish my full app so my students can have the whole class as the free version will just have a few sequences. I need to find teachers who are willing to come up with content so I can provide them with apps. And we have to build the input system, but that will take quite awhile. It's a behind the scenes thing that when it's rolled out, will make so much sense. But for now, we've got our first one ready to go and it's cool!

Yoga on the go - really!

You can "like" Capital Yoga Publishing on Facebook if you want to follow the progress from there and see more screen shots :)

Hot Yoga: Substitute for Sex?

As you may be aware, I don't think hot yoga is yoga at all. And I don't have a problem with what it is, I just don't think it's yoga. Yoga wouldn't have us waste resources to practice and see the other post about that. But it hit me the other day what is really going on in the hot room and I'm going to tell you what I think although the title of the post has basically said it all.

Keep in mind this is a generalization and it's food for thought; it's not meant to put down your practice or offend you :)

It seems to me that in our culture we say we're over-sexed based on images in advertising and things teens are texting each other and in that type of messaging, but I would suggest that our culture is majorly under-sexed for real. Who has time to have great sex? Everybody has to work all day, there are duties and hobbies when you get home, and by the time you finally crawl into bed with your lover, you're ready for sleep. Or if sex happens, it may be perfunctory. And I know some of you have awesome sex and go on for hours regularly, but I'm not talking about you.

Our neighbours in Europe and South America knew they had to shut down for lunch and take time to be with their spouses in the middle of the day. When would anyone in our culture simply have the time to luxuriate with another body whose schedule matched? And when it really feels great like around ovulation or fertile times for women, those days may not land on a weekend or a day off.

So given that women, especially I would say, are under-sexed, I would like to look over at who's doing hot yoga. What started out as therapeutic yoga for weight loss and flexibility now has loads of women who recognize a sure thing with a schedule they can be in control of. Because the room is hot, you've got to wear very little to make it through the class. So now we've got a bunch of hot, sweaty women wearing skimpy outfits. (lululemon is the new lingerie...) And on top of it, the hot room invariably has mirrors. Now we're hot women working out, looking at ourselves. We're taking ourselves to the edge physically with gentleness. It's pretty satisfying. And I would say it's somewhat sexually satisfying and that's why we do it. The lucky guys who have figured out what's going on in the hot room will put up with some of the moves we do in there just to soak up the vibes and sit in that space.

And I think it's sort of sad that we don't have the real thing. That we aren't with another body, being embodied, being with ourselves and creating pleasure and community, rather we're continuing the puritanical belief structures some of our ancestors came to this continent with. I think they'd be proud to be honest. We've finally eliminated the need for other people and we're well on the way to total independence.

Working out in the hot room can be a wonderful way to feel good about yourself - after a class you feel warm, you've admired yourself, and there are no complications or conversations - which can enhance your experience and make great sex more likely. My guess is though, that if you're regularly having great sex, the kind your body and spirit know is possible, you won't have much time left for hot yoga, or by the time you are, the yoga studio will be closed for the night.

Yoga Accessories

I'm so torn about all of this stuff and so here I blog. When I first started doing yoga, we didn't have yoga mats, we had "space." We didn't have special ties, we had "knotted socks." And that sort of suits me. Like if I'm riding my bike around, I don't need fancy clothes, I just get on my bike with whatever I'm already wearing.

So now yoga's all accessorized and I guess that's fun and neat and I have some, but really it all ends up as more clutter at my house. I heard the story from Sam Dworkis of how Iyengar started with the yoga blocks - he needed a prop for someone and basically said something like, "pass me the Bombay phone book," and then all the americans in the room got excited and started measuring and voila, the yoga block was born. lululemon has provided us all with great looking, comfortable special yoga clothes. And each class has its own special twist, but the biggest yoga accessory of all I would say is this hot thing. Bikram must be laughing his head off at how much his yoga gimmick has transformed and created a whole new industry. At his studio in the past, at any rate, there were no special air filtration systems or heaters, he just plugged in space heaters, packed the room and that was the heat. Somewhere in this blog there may be the story of me trying to heat the auditorium at Kripalu for his visit back in '92.

Anyways, it's seeming like it's all getting gimmicky and fun and that's great but we're avoiding the community, the connection, and the simplicity that is inherent in yoga, and instead we're separating, and isolating ourselves and making our practice more complicated by requiring more yoga accessories. Sure, people go to yoga classes and are with people, but there's not much opportunity to really connect. Some classes offer tea afterwards, like the Kundalini classes often do, but most are basically stretching classes, mine included. Yoga used to be something you did at home; now we all go out to do yoga. It's a big deal, it requires a lot of time, special outfits, and I've got to say, in my opinion, that is so not yoga.

Needless to say, after this month, I will not be teaching hot yoga. I'd totally do a work out in a hot room, but I wouldn't call it yoga. I don't think yoga would have us waste resources to practice. Awesome, hot stretching might. But yoga leans towards consciousness, not unconsciousness. It leans to simplicity, not to complication.

And I'm working right now on what to call a Tuesday night class that I'd like to offer that is way more Old School Yoga. One that does some stretching and does a meditation. A class that encourages conversation and has room for that and some teaching on the other aspects of yoga, not just the postures. Stay tuned. An actual yoga/meditation class just might be coming your way if I have mine ;)

Chilly in Florida

It's cold here. I heard it may even snow tonight! They cancelled a Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans due to cold weather yesterday, which is about a 6 hour drive west of here. I was considering doing some yoga video stuff here but it's been so cold that to do anything on the beach hasn't felt like a good idea. We're not even driving back to see Swami J again. Things worked differently than we'd planned and so I'll stay put in Tallahassee for the weekend.

What I did do today though was stand in front of a green screen and do my "scraping outside the inside of a giant jar of peanut butter" thing. I'm hoping to find a good match of a peanut butter jar and my scraping and see if I can get it to look as planned. I've got a few more steps to do before that's finished though. So there's nothing here for you...oh here's a picture of a jar and one of me in the Circle K cafe using their wi-fi.

It feels funny not to be teaching yoga for so long. This will be the longest I've gone not teaching in I can't remember how long. Years for sure. I've taken a week off before but this will be over a week! I do like it too. It's really nice being on vacation, I must say. Even though there's weather and ups and downs and all of that, but all in all it's good.

Yogadministration

I like to teach yoga. I don't like to do the paperwork associated with my job, however. And that's not even totally true. I don't really mind the paperwork, I just often leave it alone and wait to do it in batches. So things get left until past the last minute sometimes. Other times I'm on top of it and things are invoiced on time and papers are put away and emails are sent and I'm in alignment :)

Today was one of those days of getting into alignment. As I'm typing I'm remembering just one more invoice that needs to be sent out. It's nice having a job and direct deposit and and all of that. This isn't that kind of job. It's not a job really at all, except in a way that it's a bunch of things all cobbled together. And that's how I like it, otherwise I'd do something else.

Sometimes I think of that. If you've been reading you know I think about that. My latest store idea is a shoe store on Dalhousie. That street badly needs a shoe store in my opinion. I'd open a store and I'd call it "Dalshoesies." I think I might just do that. That would bring on more of the Administrationasana though. Totally. I figure I could still teach yoga...