Wii Yoga

When I taught at the yoga dance camp for teenage [mostly] girls a month or so back. I opened with a general introduction, and then asked the room how many people had tried yoga before. About half the hands in the room went up for the 14-16 age group. When I asked where, most had tried yoga in gym class. Awesome!

For the younger group, 12-14, about half went up as well. When I asked where, a lot said gym. One girl, however, said "I do it at home on my Wii!" After ascertaining that, yes, Wii yoga did count, about 5-8 more hands went up. Therefore, because of the Wii generation, more of the younger group had done yoga than the older group.

This, frankly, made me feel incredibly out of the loop. The fact that Wii has a yoga program registered on my radar, and then passed on by. I don't think I gave enough credit to this "game." After teaching at dance camp, I came to the realization that many of my new students may, eventually, have had their first exposure to yoga be with a Wii. How can I accept this experience as valid and beneficial, but maybe see the practice as more than a game or fitness program?

As I understand it, part of Wii fitness has you weigh yourself. While that can, for some, be a benefit of yoga, others will find benefits without weight loss. After Wii-ing, I hope it isn't seen as a detriment if in -person yoga classes aren't a weight loss program. I also hope doesn't create a generation that sees yoga as an exercise class and has a hard time getting past that. Many of my older students coming to yoga for the first time talk about stress reduction, inner peace, and relaxation; will the new generation?

No one I know has a Wii. I've never tried it for anything. Has anyone else? If so, any advice on how to be a better yoga teacher to the Wii generation, looking for points instead of peace?

For those as in the dark as me, the video is a sequence from Wii. So, for today's sequence, we're going meta-digital! Yeah!