• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, April 8, 2016

With interest in yoga continuing to grow by flexible, well-balanced leaps and bounds, pioneering enthusiast publication Yoga Journal is launching a new series of events in a continental roadshow, the new “Live Be Yoga Tour.”

The tour features two yoga “ambassadors” who won a contest hosted by the magazine. They will now be trekking across the U.S. and Canada for five months visiting scores of yoga classes and practitioners — and documenting it online and in print.

The Live Be Yoga Tour kicks off today in New York City, with YJ Live!, scheduled for April 8-11. Classes for all ability levels are lead by top instructors, including an exclusive Shanti Sweat Class with Gaia teachers Rodney and Colleen Saidman Yee, along with the ambassadors.

Subsequent stops planned for the tour include Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, culminating in another YJ Live event in Colorado.

Highlights from the trip will include a visit to Eisenhower Elementary School in Flint, Michigan, where teachers have implemented yoga and mindfulness practices to help manage stress in the wake of the water crisis; a visit to Walter Reed Military Base, profiling the use of yoga therapy and the recovery process for wounded veterans; a visit to San Quentin Prison, the first correctional facility in the country to offer yoga; and a training session with the Seattle Mariners.

New advertisers are signing up for YJ’s print and digital editions, and the publication is getting traction with its new paid online instructional videos, according to publisher Melissa Strome and editor-in-chief Carin Gorrell.

The February-March issue of YJ includes ads for Tito’s Vodka (an entirely new category as well as a new client) and April-May features Ford as a new advertiser. In the second half of the year, Cottonelle toilet paper will appear as a new advertiser. YJ has  signed up a number of new sponsors for the tour, including Lorissa’s Kitchen, a new product launch focused on healthy protein snacks, and Goodness Knows snack bars.

Strome also noted the success of YJ’s paid content push, centering on a la carte instructional videos hosted at AimHealthU.com.

According her, the videos “allow viewers to practice with teachers they wouldn’t necessarily have access to otherwise.” Depending on the intensity and degree of interactivity with instructors, the online video courses range in price from around $40 to $250.