My Five-Minute Yoga Practice

Thursday, August 18, 2011

My Five-Minute Yoga Practice

at 8:06 AM

My Five-Minute Yoga Practice

By Phillip Levin on August 18th, 2011
Our Rating:

:: EXCELLENT
iPhone App - Designed for the iPhone, compatible with the iPad

An awesome resource for anyone interested in yoga.

Developer: Eve Johnson
Price: $2.99
Version Reviewed: 1.0
Device Reviewed On: iPhone

iPhone Integration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-use Value Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 3.67 out of 5 stars

My Five-Minute Yoga Practice is not the first app of its kind, but it’s definitely one of the better instructional yoga apps on the App Store.

The app comes from Eve Johnson, a certified yoga instructor from Vancouver, who also maintains a yoga blog by the title of “Five-Minute Yoga.”

As the title implies, at the core of My Five-Minute Yoga Practice is the idea that anyone can practice and enjoy the benefits of yoga – even if it’s just five minutes a day. This belief rests at the heart Johnson’s app and blog. The app is well-designed and features a very easy to use interface. When users boot it up, they’re greeted with a welcome screen, which features two introduction pages: “Why Five Minutes ” and “What and Why.” These serve as a great leaping off point for anyone interested in learning yoga and using this app. The rest of My Five-Minute Yoga Practice is separated into different tabs, making it easy to navigate its content.

The focus of the app is on five-minute yoga stretches, but it features a section for both five-minute stretches and longer. Users can browse through a lengthy list of different routines and then select the one they’re interested in. From there, they can read about “What and Why” – an explanation of what the stretch does and why it’s good. Or they can jump right in by pressing “Play.” A picture-based tutorial featuring voice over instructions from Johnson will play, guiding users through the stretch. Users can also browse the routine by individual pose if they prefer.

My Five-Minute Yoga Practice also features an alarm feature, which users can use to remind themselves of their set-aside yoga time. Sure, it’s something that could be accomplished outside of the app, but it’s still a nice little extra.

There’s a ton of information here. It’s quite impressive, in fact. But if I had to lodge a complaint at My Five-Minute Yoga Practice it’d be that the bulk of the experience consists of the picture-based demonstrations. I can understand why Johnson went with pictures – they allow users to get a snapshot view of the individual poses. However, for learning purposes, it would have been nice to include videos as well.

That said, My-Five Minute Yoga is an awesome app for anyone interested in learning yoga. Nicely done.