Hey, Athletes! Have you ever done a yoga session at home and were wondering whether your down dog really looks the way it is supposed to? Or whether your body is correctly aligned in plank pose? The answer is the Skill Yoga Movement Coach!
We’ve all been there. So what should you do? Record yourself practicing yoga or pay for a personal yoga teacher? Well, those are good ideas but pretty time-consuming and not affordable for everyone. That’s why we’ve spent the past year developing the Skill Yoga Movement Coach, a digital yoga teacher in your pocket.
Take the ancient practice into the future
Over the past few decades, not much has changed about at-home yoga practice besides the platform – 30 years ago classes were taught via VHS, twenty years ago on DVDs, ten years ago on websites, and today we have mobile apps. We, at Skill Yoga, believe the yoga world is ready for a major digital revolution. And the Movement Coach is kicking it off!
The Skill Yoga Movement Coach recognizes the alignment of 17 joints in your body through your phone’s selfie camera by visually monitoring your movements. Combining AI and computer vision technology, the Movement Coach is able to give you incredibly accurate, real-time visual and audio feedback on your yoga poses as you move through your yoga practice.
The idea is to offer a more accessible, COVID-safe and less expensive alternative to yoga studios or one-on-one yoga classes for everyone who practices yoga at home. Even the most seasoned yoga practitioners need feedback and alignment correction every now and then!
What can the Movement Coach do?
With the Movement Coach you’ll be able to
- Track your body’s movement in real-time
- Ensure proper form during your yoga session to make it fun, safe and more effective
- Measure your progress by receiving a Pose Score for each pose during a short assessment
How does the Movement Coach work?
When you open the Skill Yoga app, go to the library and tap on the Movement Coach card. Once you’re there, choose which yoga pose you want to work on. To refresh your technique, you can first read the pose instructions, and when you’re ready, tap “Begin” to start the Movement Coach.
During your first session, we take you through a short onboarding video that explains the feature in more detail. Then we help you set up your phone correctly. Next, the phone asks for permission to access your camera and off we go!
You position the phone on the floor and yourself on the mat about two meters away from the phone. Once your whole body is in the frame, we guide you into the pose step-by-step. You have 20 seconds to arrive into the pose while the Movement Coach is giving you feedback, correcting your alignment.
Then we start the pose assessment during which we evaluate your form and give you a final pose score. If you get a score above 90, you have mastered the pose! If it’s lower, we suggest that you repeat and refine the pose in the future.
We finish the Movement Coach session with a short feedback and a summary of your performance, so you can see a snapshot of you doing the pose with a detailed analysis of your form and tips for improvement.
The best part about it is that you don’t even need to watch your screen – like with a real yoga teacher, all tips and feedback will be given verbally!
No special hardware required
What do you need to use it? Nada except for your smartphone. That’s right. The Skill Yoga Movement Coach doesn’t require any specialty hardware. No wearable devices, peculiar cameras, or weird full body sensor morphsuits. The Movement Coach runs directly on your smartphone.
Keep things private
For the Movement Coach to work, we need access to your phone’s camera. But don’t worry, no one will see you during the class and the video remains on your phone. So, relax and focus on what really matters – taking your yoga practice to the next level!
Be a part of a digital yoga revolution
The Skill Yoga Movement Coach is the first of its kind and we’ve taken a lot of time to perfect it. Why wait? Step into the future and let us help you move better and feel great!
Ready to try out the Movement Coach?
This feature is only available on iOS at the moment and the Android release will follow soon! Head over to the Skill Yoga app, or if you already have the app then update it to the latest release to start using the Movement Coach. We are proud to offer this feature to all users and to take the next big steps in making yoga accessible to everyone, everywhere!