I’m getting back into yoga for two main reason, I want to improve my air consumption underwater, and more importantly, I want to shape my body further away from looking like a potato. I used to take yoga classes while I’m still paying for a gym membership. The gym is gone, and I don’t feel like joining another.
So, I start hunting for apps. After a quick search, 3 apps bubble to the top. I scratched out apps that are just showing images of yoga poses, push the one that charge money up front further down. I’m looking for yoga class at home.
- Yoga Studio (iOS & Android): after free installation, every button in the app just ask you to subscribe to their membership programs. There is 7-day free trial, but that’ll kick in after you commit to a subscription fee of $96 /year. So I just skip this one, the free is a lie.
- FitStar Yoga (iOS only): the only app I saw that gives completely free classes, but it is limited to one class a week. Personally, I’m not a fan of their classes. Not a fan of their music choices, it sounds like those techno electronic songs in gyms. They seem to focus more on poses and positions rather than flow and breathing. Also the app isn’t updated for iPhone X screen, really?! It’s been more than a year. The premium version costs $40 / year.
- Down Dog (iOS, Android, & Web): Vinyasa yoga classes. Highly recommended all over the net, including /r/yoga. While some reviews mentioned that it can be used totally free, this is no longer true. You can use it for 3 classes without any commitment, but after that you need to pay $20 / year subscription fee. The classes are quite brilliantly generated every time. Great flow along with some breathing guidance. Good music picks and we have some options to pick the types of music too. Another thing going for Down Dog app, there is a web app version. I’ve been using the web version ever since I’ve paid for the pro account.
That said, I really recommend you to join introductory classes before committing to doing yoga via app or youtube vids. It’s better to have an instructor to teach the most basic stuff rather than going in totally blind. Also youtube is a terrible way to do yoga from home, the pace will go all over the place from videos to videos, and you’ll spend like hours to look for the class you’ll actually like.