Originally published 2019 · Written by YSS Founder Hayley Winter

Editor's Note | Looking Back from 2026

When I first wrote this article in January 2019, online yoga education was still finding its feet.

Little did any of us know that just over a year later, a global pandemic would close yoga studios, universities, gyms and training centers around the world. Teachers who had spent their careers working face-to-face suddenly had to learn how to teach through a screen.

For us at the Institute of Yoga Sports Science® (YSS), the situation was different.

We had already been teaching online for more than a decade.

And the journey that got us there began with another global crisis.

How it all began 

Teaching a sports-specific yoga session at Ipswich Town FC, UK, 2001

My interest in yoga for athletes began long before online education became part of the picture.

From around 2000, I had been exploring a hypothesis: could yoga be adapted specifically to support athletic performance?

Originally published 2016 · Written by Trainee Yoga Sports Coach™ Karla Oblak

The Yoga Sports Science® programme to become a Yoga Sports Coach™ is an amazing journey within the fields of yoga and sport. Two separate but integrated concepts, they bring together everything I have been looking for, and the decision to enrol in the programme was absolutely the best possible choice for me.

The journey began even before I enrolled.

When I first met YSS Founder Hayley Winter at the enrolment interview, I knew it was the right thing to do. She answered all my questions about the programme, went through the whole course outline in detail and told me that the journey to becoming a Yoga Sports Coach™ required commitment and dedication, but that it would be very rewarding.

When I heard about the knowledge I would gain, my inner wish to become a Yoga Sports Coach™ said yes!

I Didn't Know What to Expect

As this was my first online training course, I did not know what to expect.

I can say that...