Idea: Yoga Pairings Book
Summary
This idea is for a book that pairs yoga with locations and activities like hiking, or stand-up-paddle boards, and sunset meditation. Ideally I imagine this specific to a given location like Oahu. Such a book could show incredible locations and activities on each page, alongside suggested yoga poses and meditation. I'm not clear on what such a book would be called, but I imagine "Oahu Yoga and Meditation Guide" or "The Best Meditation Spots in Hawaii" or "Yoga and Adventure Pairings Oahu" or "Top 20 Yoga and Hike Locations in The Bay Area" could all work. I imagine lots of visitors and new people to a magical place like Hawaii are very keen to know great hikes and other activities that the area offers, and so in many ways such a book would be a helpful guidebook / travel book. In this way the book can benefit even people who opt to minimize or skip out on the yoga/meditation aspect and just want discover about sandbars, dances and waterfalls for the adventure or social aspect. Ironically I'm not really a yogi, but my hope is that one or more of my friends who is into yoga will publish such a book and sell or give away copies to help them get more business.
The Inspiration / Motivation
Building a bigger base is a challenge for every yoga teacher in Hawaii. Lots of yogis on Hawaii have incredible instagram accounts with wonderful photos of locations to help get followers, but how do you convince people to join your classes? A friend of mine on Oahu, Victoria Chin, runs some lovely yoga workshops on Magic Island in Oahu, and I looked at her setup and thought: I wonder if she could have a big sign to attract more people. Suddenly I realized lots of people walking past are tourists, who probably (a) need some kind of invitation to join and (b) would be interested in an affordable book that gives them suggestions of places they can checkout. Being a published author could help add legitimacy and indicate that you are an expert in both yoga and local knowledge. So I felt compelled to design a couple of mock pages to show what such a book might look like. Personally I miss Oahu a lot - I lived there for 1.5 years during the pandemic - and sometimes wonder about the little hidden local gems I may have missed. I'm also bad at yoga though (terrible flexibility). I'm only very lightly interested in yoga honestly, and it is not necessarily something I seek out, so I liked the idea of a lazy meditation guide. I almost feel like the first page of the book should be an index of the activities.... but also have checklist boxes to tick off what you have tried.
People talk about "wine and cheese" "pairings'", but never about "yoga" pairings, and yet on the island of Hawaii, people will often do yoga as part of a mountain hike, or yoga on surfboards, or waterfall meditations. This was where the idea came from... and I'm making this page because I really think it would be a fun way for someone to become a published author. Each adventure could also have a suggested pose to start with, and explain why that pose for that location, plus talk about the benefits of each pose.
Suggested Yoga Pairing on Oahu
Here are some rough "yoga pairing" ideas for Oahu specifically:
- Beach & yoga pairings:
- Magic island sunset yoga & picnic > start with: cat cow pose (and Victoria Chin).
- Stand up paddleboard yoga & swim > Ala Moana beach, or at the right time of year the dolphin beaches.
- Adventure & yoga pairings.
- Sandbar party & bikini yoga > half submerged, staring at the mountains.
- Waikiki boat yoga & snorkel party > yoga on a boat, then snorkel party. (don't forget to mention turtle respect)
- Sunset meditate & fire dancing > Kaimana beach on the right day.
- Light yoga & ecstatic dance > Kapiʻolani park with diamond head in the background.
- Campout & sunrise yoga > Sherwood forest.
- North shore crystals & sound healing > Explore north shore and then go to specific beach with your portable speaker and playlist.
- Acrozumba & yoga > with Sara Coffey.
- Surf & yoga > tandem opportunities.
- Acroyoga & slacklining > Magic island and whever else acroyogis hang out.
- Hike & meditate pairings:
- Lanikai pillbox sunrise hike & meditation > start with: lotus pose for grounding. (as per example page)
- Mountain hike #1 > you pick! (instagram).
- Light trail #1 > so many good ones, even tidepools.
- Waterfall hike #1 > pick your favorite waterfall (instagram).
- Waterfall hike #2 > pick out another waterfall.
How to Create A Yoga Pairing Book
If you stumble onto this page, maybe you'll create the world's first yoga pairing book for wherever you live! I guess some might assume "yoga pairings" would suggest two people doing yoga positions together, but in this case I clearly mean yoga plus some activity paired together. If I've sent you to this page, maybe I think you are a badass yoga teacher and I think you'd have fun creating a book like this.
I started self-published books for free on Amazon in 2020 and enjoyed the process so much that I have written instrucions in a Publishing wiki page. If you want I'll email you the 8.5x8.5 inch InDesign template I used for the screenshots above and my Ice Cream = Sex Book because I feel like 8.5" x 8.5" color would be a great size for this book. In return I want 0% of profits. Yup, that's right. I would get pleasure from you creating this book, I don't even need you to mention my name if you create the book... but please do send me a copy if you create one! I would advise you to only make the book maybe 20-30 pages long to keep Amazon costs down, then order a bunch of author price copies (probalby will cost you ~$4 each) and gift them to people who you want to join your classes. I have and I think such a book shouldn't be something you spend months of time on and expect it to make you rich. Just do a “good is good enough” so you can call yourself the “author of ....” and if somehow you do determine that the book is driving some business etc, then maybe you could put a little more effort into it, but I really think just a list of locations would be a great resource for people. Obviously you would promote yourself and friends within the book itself, becase you would be silly not to. Taking or finding good free use images is slow, so if you wanted to make the book quicker/easier/cheaper you could make the book smaller and black-and-white, but then you'd lose a lot of the magic of Hawaii's color. Between the friends I already know on Hawaii I feel like there are probably already dozens of good images of prime yoga locations, and it would be easy to get friends to take yoga poses in several locations of interest to complete the book. That part would be really fun! I'm more than happy to offer help with design. It won't be my book though, I'm not yet a yogi - just a support of yogis!
Sincerely,
Andrew Noske
| Acknowledgements: The incredible Ann Swanson for getting me a little more interested in yoga through reading her book "Science of Yoga" - which has sold 100,000s of copies! Also the lovely Victoria Chin in Hawaii. Sadly I didn't get that much time to ever hang out with Victoria, but in many ways she helped inspire Ann and I to write Limitless Questions and inspired this idea for "yoga pairings" when I found out she does yoga lessons on boats! |
