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echnology creeps into yoga more and more. We’ve
moved from the innocent days of yoga videos to the
point where we now have digital mats that offer feedback
during practice and even vibrating yoga leggings that
signal when you’re out of alignment. I guess it’s the same
principle as balancing the chakras, just updated for our modern world!
I tend to avoid these kinds of gimmicks and limit my yoga
technology to a decent mat and a couple of blocks. But recently I
acquired a digital activity tracker and it’s hard not to be fascinated
by the data it records. It looks a bit like a clunky digital watch but
it’s packed full of technology that measures my heart rate, activity
levels, sleep quality and much else besides. It’s designed for those
with greater athletic aspirations than me, so it’s been interesting
seeing what it makes of my yoga life.
Of course it’s pretty good at automatically detecting my brisk
walk to the yoga studio for classes. If it’s a day where class follows
straight on from the office, I’m carrying an additional change of
clothes and I can see my heart rate running higher than normal with
the extra effort. Bonus workout! But if I walk barefoot (or in barefoot
shoes) it thinks I’m on the elliptical trainer! Clearly my footfall is more
subtle: I tend to glide along so as not to bruise my feet compared to
the more energetic steps I take in regular shoes.
And then it’s baffled by the yoga practice itself with irregular
movements that the accelerometer can’t make sense of.Unsurprisingly my heart rate is inconsistent through the practice
and the tracker tells me I’ve burned fewer calories doing the class
than I did walking to the class. The sweaty mess I’m in and my sore
muscles suggest otherwise!
If asana practice baffles the technology, even more so any length
of time in seated meditation. During this practice my heart rate
drops sufficiently that the tracker records me as sleeping. Given
how difficult it is sometimes to differentiate the altered state of
consciousness in deep meditation from slipping into a light doze,
I wonder if the activity tracker is revealing a deep truth! Perhaps
those dark mornings when I crawl out of bed and stumble out to
my cushion could have been better spent in bed, if all I’m doing is
continuing to sleep while sitting up!
The activity tracker has been interesting as a tool for reflecting on
how I use my time and energies each day. It’s just a pity there’s no
algorithm for tracking my progress towards enlightenment — that
might be motivational indeed! But that’s the beauty of yoga — the
destination is a mystery. There’s no graph or pie chart to capture the
richness of the practice. The tracker never vibrates with a message
alert telling me “Congratulations — you’ve passed your daily target
of 3 yamas and 4 niyamas”!Victoria Jackson lives and practices in Oxford. She is registered with
Yoga Alliance as a vinyasa yoga teacherTracking your yoga practice with technology. By Victoria Jackson
Artificial intelligence