Originally published January 2019. Updated August 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 centres 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?

I began putting that question into pract...