
Show HN: A simple, free yoga practice app for everyone - dve
https://www.dosome.yoga
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dve
I have suffered from back problems for many years and the only thing that has
really, genuinely helped is Yoga. I built this little app to help remove one
more barrier to me practicing everyday.

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dmos62
Tell us more about how you got better.

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criddell
I'm very yoga curious but the woo that often creeps in is a real turn off.

For example, the first session I looked at sent me to
[https://youtu.be/s2NQhpFGIOg](https://youtu.be/s2NQhpFGIOg) and at the one
minute mark it tells me that a yoga mat (preferably made of cotton) is
important because it prevents earthing of the energy that gets generated in
the process.

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michaelbuckbee
You might enjoy DDP Yoga -
[https://youtu.be/aB5ys1zsz-o](https://youtu.be/aB5ys1zsz-o) \- it's yoga from
the professional wrestlers perspective.

~~~
UnpossibleJim
I whole heartedly second this recommendation. This is from Diamond Dallas Page
(I believe that was his wrestling name, I'm no fan of Pro Wrestling, I'm
afraid) who had major compression of multiple spinal discs, almost unusable
shoulders, hip issues and knees that were destroyed. He started yoga exercises
without the "woo woo" and has brought a lot of the functionality back to his
body.

He has gone on to rehabilitate multiple people and document it. It's really a
fascinating story. Kudos!

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voisin
Rather than collate yoga videos with differing levels of accuracy relative to
search (the search I just did was pretty inaccurate), why not have some gifs
of poses and generate the practice by linking these poses together to mix
something based on the user’s chosen level of difficulty, style, and goals?

For my example, I chose “Advanced” and two of the three videos were labelled
“Beginner”. The third I did a quick view of and it also looked like a beginner
practice. This is an issue generally with yoga videos online - they are
predominantly for beginners with somewhat limited Intermediate videos and very
rarely Advanced videos. But you could solve this with gifs of different poses
linked together on the fly, and generate the exact desired length of practice!

~~~
bmm6o
That's the approach that the Down Dog yoga app seems to take. They had an
instructor go through all the poses and transitions, and they can then run all
sorts of different classes by combining them in different ways. They do it
pretty seamlessly, but i have to imagine a lot of planning went into it.

~~~
jeremy_k
Interesting I'll check this out. I had a similar idea that you would basically
catalog everything and then have instructors put in classes. And as you grew
more and more class you could start to find repetitions that instructors use
and eventually be able to randomly generate classes with well known sequences.

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wintermutestwin
I had my yoga teacher ex design a simple routine for me that addressed my
specific biomech issues (cycling and sitting). I videoed her walking me
through it and watched it enough times to get it down.

I highly recommend getting a tailored routine. The sheer numbers of people
with yoga teaching credentials make it pretty easy to find one.

My question is: Where is an AR app for yoga/PT/TaiChi/etc? I thought it would
come with the Kinect, but that died on the vine. Now that Apple is all about
AR and health, it should be in the pipeline - right?

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elaineoyang
I am a certified yoga therapist, and I agree with a lot of comments here
regarding some yoga practices on YouTube. Some go way into the "woo woo" stuff
that is unnecessary and impractical (i.e., you don't need a cotton yoga mat),
and others teach it in ways that actually can exacerbate problems.

I have been seeing private clients for years on chronic pain issues, low back
pain, migraines, anxiety/stress. Throughout my years of working with them,
I've created short videos and sequences on poses/practices that have helped a
lot of my clients again and again.

I try to make these videos practical and bite-sized, instead of 45min or hour
long practices. I get that we are all busy, and my motto is always: do a
little everyday, and that will take you all the way.

Here is a link to the library of therapeutic yoga practices (including a whole
playlist for low back pain). I add new videos weekly:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithelaine/](https://www.youtube.com/user/yogawithelaine/)

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fernly
Some vocabulary info would help. As a beginner, words like "hatha" and
"ashtanga" mean nothing, so hard to select.

~~~
lsllc
As a 15+ year Yogi (who practices regularly, well at least until C19!) I've
never heard of these either!

According to Wikipedia:

    
    
      * Hatha is seems to be a branch of Yoga (Hatha apparently means "force")
      * Ashtanga is another type of Yoga brought to the modern world by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois and involves synchronizing breath with a series of positions.
    

Interesting ... I'll have to look into them!

~~~
dve
Yes, thats a fair point, I will add something to help explain each. To be
honest I had never heard of Hatha until I started building this, but as I
aggregated the data it is a keyword that came up quite a lot. Thanks for the
feedback!

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latchkey
Youtube search for Sivananda yoga. All the breathing / poses are effectively
the same and it is very simple traditional yoga that has been practiced for a
very long time.

Anyone can do it and there are different variations of different amounts of
time. I personally skip the headstand stuff because I worry about hurting my
neck, but the rest of it is very non-stressful on your body, but quite
effective.

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immy
Since you are both positioning this for true beginners AND surfacing YouTube
videos which offer varying degrees of teaching skill, level of spirituality,
focus on anatomy, etc. I recommend adding a prominent disclaimer about
variability of classes, encouraging shopping around. I'd hate for people to
try a class that wasn't a fit, and judge the whole practice of yoga. I think a
great onboarding would suggest 3 very different classes.

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jnathsf
Slightly off topic but do Indians generally find Westerners doing Yoga
cultural appropriation when it’s stripped from its original context? I
actually see Yoga and Hinduism more broadly like open source software with its
many philosophies as branches. As such developing a free app is in the same
spirit of making (formerly) esoteric practices more accessible

~~~
actuator
Can't answer for Indians, but as far I understand it is a bit complicated.
Depending on the classification you are looking at there are like 6-8 branches
of Yoga of which "Hatha Yoga" is one. Hatha Yoga is the one which most people
think of as Yoga. It has the physical 'asanas' as the main component. It has
other parts like 'Pranayam' as well which are breathing exercises with
chanting of verses/sounds in some of them. Most people who practice yoga are
doing 'asanas' primarily with 'pranayams' mixed in sometimes. 'Asanas' in
themselves are mostly physical and I think anyone can do them without any
context. So, feel free to do so. :)

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mtalantikite
Thanks for making this! I might not be the target of this, but it’d nice to be
able to select from videos longer than an hour. I see ashtanga as a filter
option and primary series is going to take at least 90 minutes to get through
(sometimes 2 hours depending on who you’re practicing with and how they
count).

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amerkhalid
Thank You!! I love this.

Since SIP orders, I have been working out at home with YouTube videos. I have
been bookmarking some of my favorite videos and categorizing them (arms, upper
body, cardio, etc). I think you can easily build a clone of this for other
forms of workouts too.

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arbitrage
Thank you! I was just hoping for something exactly like this, as a super new
beginner.

~~~
stronglikedan
I hope you get into it, and if you do, you should consider going to some
classes. Doing it by yourself in front of a screen is good, but nothing beats
the environment of a class with others. It's hard to describe, since you don't
really interact with everyone, but there's a certain energy you get - you can
stretch a bit farther and relax a bit more deeply. Plus, you may think you're
doing things correctly, but a good instructor can spot even the smallest
misalignments.

~~~
arbitrage
That is very good advice, thank you. I have anxiety issues, so being able to
prep on the terminology and basics actually does give me the incentive to go
out to a real class. Which is something I've always wanted to do, but haven't
been up to before. It's very difficult for me to productively receive
instruction from somebody when I know absolutely nothing about the topic --
it's probably some sort of weird childhood conditioning thing.

At any rate, yes. Your advice is very good :)

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artur_makly
thanks for making the world... healthier..and more connected to their inner
consciousness ( namaste )

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thrownaway954
take the 'create a new practice' page and put it on the bottom of the
homepage.

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picardo
This is exactly what I was looking for!

