I was having lunch with Juned and Jayvee last week at La Maison in Greenbelt 5 when Jayvee, a super techie guy who blogs about anything techie (AND did the Crane Pose in his first yoga class ever!!!) mentioned to me that the Wii Fit, the newest techie “toy” in town, includes yoga.

 

My thought bubble: You must be kidding! How can you ever do yoga on a skateboard-sized mat?

Well, this is what I found out about this thingamajig:

– the Balance Board, as it is called, is actually more than just a scale. It can read your movements and bring this to life on the screen. Of course, as with the other exercises that go with the Wii Fit, it allows you to set your physical properties, training goals, and history of your activity results.

– an animated yogi (or yogini, if you choose) demonstrates the poses and you are supposed to follow along while listening to a voice-over of the trainer.

– Yellow circles set the boundaries for the center of gravity. As you do a pose, the Board detects where you are putting pressure and moves the ball accordingly. You need to try to keep that ball within the yellow circle.

– At the end of each pose, how you do on the left and right side is evaluated through a numerical rating (the closer the ratings to each other, the more balanced you are). An overall grade is also given so this seems pretty useful during yoga competitions among friends.

As a practicing yogini who is also a bit techie, this gadget holds some fascination. But would I go out tomorrow and buy it? No, I don’t think so.

This is a FUN thing to do among friends and may be the only hope to get couch potatoes out of the uhhhh…couch.

But if you are a serious yoga practitioner, this won’t give you the workout that you get from the real thing. Moving around, jumping and hopping like I do during my yoga practice can never be done on this teeny-weeny electronic board. I cannot even imagine how I would do the Shoulderstand or Headstand on this contraption.

I think I will wait this one out and see what happens. Maybe I will just go a-looking for a blogger friend who has one and do some tests on it (Jayvee, call me when you get one!).

But for those of you who are dying to get your hands on this thing and are wondering how yoga is done on the Wii Fit, watch this YouTube video: