We Made a ChatGPT Yoga Practice. There Are Our Thoughts.

AI tools like ChatGPT have become pretty much inescapable. The generative chatbots are designed for mental outsourcing, helping humans research, learn, ideate, and even create.

As these tools gain in popularity, there’s a question of discernment that seems to be haunting us all: what is AI useful for, and what undertakings should be reserved for humans alone? Having ChatGPT help craft an itinerary for an upcoming vacation, for example, is helpful; having it finish a song you’ve been writing is…less so.

So what happens when you ask ChatGPT to make something that’s directly toed to body and breath? Like, say, an hour-long yoga practice?

We supplied ChatGPT with the following prompt: “Please make me a 60-minute vinyasa yoga sequence using Crow as a peak pose.” Then we asked several yoga teachers, including YJ staffers, to try the resulting practice.

What resulted was a quick study in the potential and limitations of AI, particularly when it comes to a practice as fully embodied as yoga.

Some Positive Feedback

ChatGPT’s take on a yoga class wasn’t entirely terrible. The bot got some of the fundamentals, including understanding how to make a yoga sequence at a very basic level.

After taking herself through the practice, yoga teacher Taylor Lorenz notes that ChatGPT clearly recognized the necessity of a warm-up. “It understood that the wrists needed to be warmed up, the heat needed to be built,” she says. Lorenz also appreciated the time allotted to Savasana at the end of class (five whole minutes!), an essential step for integration that many yoga teachers skimp on.

There were some additional surprises. “Pulsing in Goddess Pose is not something I would have thought of to help prep for Crow!” says Lorenz. “But it really warms up the inner thighs and really helps prep for the pose overall, and I loved discovering something new.”

All of our testers, including Yoga Journal editor-in-chief and yoga teacher Renee Marie Schettler had a lot of thoughts about the preparedness for Crow (more on that later). But Schettler gives a nod to the fact that ChatGPT encouraged students to test the general shape of the pose in their bodies earlier in class, before attempting the balancing part of it. “By asking students to make the shape of Crow while keeping their feet on the mat at first, it helps familiarize students with the shape without adding the scary balancing part of the equation,” she says.

And bonus, the sequence included an uncommon but intriguing transition—moving from Revolved “Crescent” (or High Lunge) to Goddess facing the opposite long side of the mat. “I hadn’t experienced that before,” says Schettler. “It felt intuitive and lovely.”

Our (Many) Concerns

Not surprisingly, there’s a lot lacking in an AI-generated yoga practice. Overall, our testers found it to be not only boring but lacking both the creativity and the physicality needed to pop up into an arm-balancing pose such as Crow.

The flow relied heavily on Sun A and B—22 minutes worth, to be exact. And that’s not including three rounds of Half Sun Salutations. The repetition, although not uncommon in some human-led classes, felt more forced than thoughtful. Schettler noted that the sheer number of Salutations has the potential to exhaust some students ahead of the most demanding part of class.

Additionally, certain transitions in the standing poses portion of class felt clunky for multiple testers. We’re looking at you, Warrior 1 to Warrior 2 and Goddess to Malasana.

Yoga teachers Bradshaw Wish and Giana Gambino, founders of C.A.Y.A. Yoga School and hosts of the The Funny Thing About Yoga podcast, quickly jumped on the fact that the foreshadowing component of class is almost entirely lacking. The lack of hinting at the posture earlier in class means that the protraction of the shoulder blades, hip flexion, and knee flexion necessary for Crow came as a surprise rather than something the class builds toward. 

Schettler was also frustrated by the lack of proper preparation early in the sequence. “Nowhere does it focus on what it actually takes to lift your feet off the mat and sustain that balancing act,” she says. This would mean asking students to press their knees against their upper arms, such as in Lizard Pose, and practice focusing their drishti, or gaze, so they didn’t look around as they come into the arm balance and, consequently, lose their balance.

As far as the necessary element of core engagement? We don’t know her. “Crow is a very core-demanding pose,” says Outside’s Managing Video Editor and yoga teacher Lauren Berger. “You could have prepared with holding Plank or Crow-style crunches.”

The actual cues for getting into Crow were also woefully inadequate. So were the inclusion of counterposes (namely backbends to juxtapose all that forward flexion), which left all of us feeling slightly off-balance afterward.

Movement aside, the timing was entirely off.

As Wish notes, the instruction to do a total of three Sun Salutations in 10 minutes would find you holdling Downward-Facing Dog for about three minutes at a time.

“I practiced this in about 35 minutes moving at a slower pace,” says Lorenz, who went so far as adding more breaths than the sequence suggested. “A lot of bulk needs to be added.”

Overall, the class did not take anyone an entire 60 minutes to complete, even when practitioners moved as slowly as humanly possible.

Our Takeaways

Overall, the practice seemed like more of an outline than an actual class. Lorenz plans to experiment with ChatGPT to see what the bot spits out on days when she’s not feeling super inspired—but she doesn’t recommend relying on the tool. None of us do.

“As a yoga teacher, it’s important that you trust your body, trust your experiences, and not rely on something like ChatGPT to put together a sequence,” says Bradshaw, adding that the AI model can’t yet understand how things truly connect and flow.

Schettler judged the sequence against the arm-balancing classes she has taken and taught in which the poses are carefully sequenced. “When that happens, the arm balance pose, whether Crow or something else, tends to feel like the next logical part of the sequence,” she explains. The human element of having a teacher respond to what’s happening for students can help them get into their bodies and respond to what’s happening in their minds. “That did not happen here. Right now, all you’ve got is a set of instructions for moving through shapes.”

Yoga is the meeting of breath and movement, two things that ChatGPT seems unable to convey and, perhaps, comprehend. To teach yoga safely and effectively, you need a body that can feel into the shapes you’re instructing—and the inner ability to anchor the practice to something more.

ChatGPT Yoga Practice: What We Were Looking For

Our criteria for an AI-generated yoga practice was similar to what we would consider when taking a human-generated sequence. Although our testers had plenty of opinions to share with us, we also asked them the following:

1. How did the overall flow feel?

Thoughts and initial feelings around the flow. Basically whether or not the vibes were off.

2. How long did the class take you?

One of the first things teachers learn when sequencing is that you need a fair amount of vignettes to build an hour-long class. So, testers were asked whether or not this practice was actually 60 minutes.

3. Were the transitions between each pose fluid and effective?

Transitions between poses have the power to feel intuitive, add interest to a practice, or take you out of it completely—which might be challenging for an algorithm to understand.

4. Was adequate time spent in each pose? Was too much time spent in certain vignettes/poses?

Yoga is a breath-led practice. Too little time in each pose can cause your breath to speed up, making the class feel rushed and fairly stressful. Too much time can bring the energy in the room down, or, in challenging poses, make students feel defeated.

5. How well was your body prepared for the peak pose (again, Crow)?

As Schettler noted, prepping the relevant body parts to move naturally into a peak pose like Crow is essential. Students should feel strong and stable as they move into the day’s most challenging shape.

6. Is this something you could teach today, as is?

Would you feel confident teaching this class with no changes? Or would your students—and your conscience—revolt?