Why We Film Our Yoga Classes Wherever We Travel

If you’ve practiced with Erin for a while, you’ve heard a howler monkey or two. You may have heard the wind trying to steal her mat. And there’s at least one bug she very politely ignored. None of that is an accident. (Well, the bug is.) We film where we are, and we’ve been doing it since the very first class.

People ask us about this a lot, so here’s the why, plus a little tour of where the camera has been so far.

Woman in child's pose on a yoga mat beside a jungle river

It started as a happy accident

Erin’s first studio was in our home in Colorado. When we decided to spend a full year in Costa Rica with our three kids, she closed it, and her students asked a fair question: what about yoga? Her answer was to film the classes and post them on YouTube so it would feel like they were still in the room. Then people we’d never met started watching. Erin tells the whole story in our behind-the-scenes video, including her honest reaction, which was roughly “I wonder who those 10 people are.”

Matt is the guy behind the camera. He records every class and then edits and publishes it. In Erin’s words, if it were just her and an iPhone, we wouldn’t have gotten very far. (Matt would like that on the record.)

The place changes the class

Here’s the real reason we keep hauling gear around. Erin said it plainly in that same video: a lot of her classes are inspired by the location. A beach at sunset asks for something different than a cold morning in the mountains, and she teaches to whatever is in front of her.

The best example is the après ski class. People had been asking for one, and Erin didn’t feel right filming it in Costa Rica. So she filmed it in Crested Butte, Colorado, right after getting off the slopes, tired and sore from several days of hard skiing with several more to come. That’s why it opens in toes pose. Her feet were stiff from ski boots, and she figured yours might be too.

Where the camera has been

La Carolina Lodge, Costa Rica. Up in the northern part of the country, between volcanoes, with a river running past. The 30 minute Movement and Meditation class was filmed there, and Erin warns you up front that you might hear the river and lots of birds. Maybe some rain too. For the River Flow class she picked a swim dock in front of the river and worked toward astavakrasana.

Playa Colorado, Nicaragua. One of our favorite beaches anywhere, and one of the windiest. The Invigorating Morning Flow opens with Erin admitting it’s a very windy morning and that we’d see if her mat starts to blow away. For the Sunset Beach class she sat between two surf breaks with the sun going down behind her. And in the Mandala Flow she invites you to let the sound of your breath match the sound of the waves.

Colorado, the long way around. The Crystal River in Marble gave us Planks on the River. Erin’s parents’ house in Sedalia gave us Flow in the Forest, where she promised we’d see what kind of critters and friends wander by.

Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. Not where you’d expect a yoga class, which is part of the fun. The Longer Holds, Wrist Free class comes with the sound of the lake and a little breeze. Also, as Erin says, “some bugs.”

What it’s actually like to film on the road

The honest version: we bring the camera equipment whether or not we think we’re going to film. Every trip. Some days it never leaves the bag. Other days it comes out, and that’s how a swim dock or a windy beach ends up in your living room.

Then the elements get a vote. Wind moves mats. Rain sends us under a roof. Howler monkeys start their commentary right in the middle of a balance pose (you can hear them in the Six String Yoga class, and Erin even stops to point one out). We’ve learned to leave most of it in. It’s what the place actually sounds like.

Erin doesn’t script her classes or film many takes. She pictures a room full of students, or just one, and teaches them. The introductions are another story. If you watch the behind-the-scenes video you’ll see her start over more than a few times, and once she gets distracted by a coconut.

Why it matters for your practice at home

Most of you practice in a living room or a bedroom, and that’s perfect. But we’ve heard from a lot of you that a class filmed somewhere real makes the 30 minutes feel bigger than your floor space. You get the ocean or the river in your ears, and your shoulders seem to figure out it’s time to come down.

If you want to take the whole trip, the 30 Day Traveling Flow Challenge sends you one class each morning from a different location for a month, across North America and Central America. It’s free. And if you’d rather stand on one of these decks in person, that’s what our spring and November retreats in Nosara are for.