My Five-Minute Yoga Practice

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

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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.

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