The Top Twenty Best Ever Yoga Articles of 2012

Thank you all for a great year with YLB

by Kara-Leah Grant, editor and founder of The Yoga Lunchbox

This is it folks, the definite list according to Google Analytics of the Top Twenty articles published on The Yoga Lunchbox this year (as of December 12th).

Reading through this list and seeing the work of my colleagues and friends, plus the names of many of the interesting people I interviewed this year was humbling and inspiring.

Collectively, we’ve created something great with The Yoga Lunchbox. Some of these articles will continue to give value year after year.

I’m delighted to see articles from many of our guest writers and columnists showing up.

Guest author, ex-flatmate and close friend Aly Titchener made it into #15 with her poignant article Looking for the Man of Your Dreams? Don’t.

Hot on her heels at #16 with How to Meditate in Four Easy Steps was Peter Fernando who wrote many articles for us as The Meditation Guy before retiring in September of this year.

Our passionate foodie columnist Valerie Love entered at #17 with Positively Pitta: How Understanding your Dosha can Revolutionize the Way You Eat. She’s been providing factually deep articles with beautiful photos since launching her Yoga on a Plate column in January.

Our resident Teacher expert Elissa Jordan snagged both #18 and #20 spot with How Teaching Yoga can Trigger Your Issues and Managing Fear when Teaching Yoga.

This year we also published our first guest series in conjunction with Hot Yoga of Wellington. Hazel Slade’s first instalment on her Forty Day Challenge, Inside a Forty Day Hot Yoga Challenge: Will Hazel Go the Distance?, landed her at #14 spot. Great inspiration if you’re thinking of doing forty days of yoga soon…

The Yoga Lunchbox has always questioned everything, and this year was no different. Emma Furness, former owner of The Dunedin Yoga Studio, shared her personal and provocative questioning of yoga in #12 Today I found my Inner Witch and she Denounced Yoga. 

Inspired by my article on returning to the corporate world, 10 Reasons Why I’m Excited to Choose Corporate Work over Teaching Yoga, Louise Thompson wrote a follow-up article called Thinking about Quitting Your Job to be a Yoga Teacher? 10 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself First.

Both articles made it into the Top Twenty, mine at #7 and Louise at #3. The irony is while I was excited about going back into corporate work, the corporate world wasn’t so excited at what I had to offer. I applied for many jobs and never even got an interview. Obviously corporate work wasn’t going to pay the bills, so I moved to the mountains and wrote a book instead. (Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who read my resume and didn’t offer me an interview!)

Proving that breaking the rules is sometimes the way to go, the top guest author spot goes to Mike Berghan, owner of Te Aro Astanga in Wellington, for his article Parampara – The Importance of Lineage in Yoga. The Yoga Lunchbox has a policy of only publishing original work, but Mike’s blogs are sometimes too good to miss and he’s kind enough to let me republish them here. Parampara was a big hit on Facebook and got great views.

This was also the year of the video interview, and I was honoured to interview many inspirational yogis in 2012. Those that made the list included Ben Ralston, Swami Shantimurti, Samar Ocean Wolf Ciprian and Mark Whitwell. Next year, there will be more, promise. (Who do you want to see?)

Video also featured at #8, with Yoga Morning Glories: What’s Your Practice Look Like?, Jenifer Parker’s response to the YouTube sensation from Equinox. Jenifer recorded her own honest look at an early morning yoga practice.

My column Musings from the Mat was quieter this year as I wrote less about what was going on in my life and more about yoga itself. Two articles still made the Top Twenty though.Confessions of an Ex-Relationships Manipulator and Control Freak at #10 and Is Bikram Choudhury really an Alien? at #5.

A surprise hit for me was an article I wrote giving specific yoga practices – Free Your Pelvis and the Rest will Follow. It’s #4 on the list, and you can expect more of those kinds of articles next year.

The newest article to make the list, appearing at #13, was Yoga can Help Heal Mental Illness Big Time, an article I wrote in honour of Annie Chapman’s campaign to change the options we offer people for healing mental illness. This is a topic near and dear to my heart and I’ll be writing more about this for both The Yoga Lunchbox and Australian Yoga Life in 2013.

Finally, Lucinda Staniland’s Google-Friendly article The Top Six Best Yoga Magazines in the World was the most popular article published on The Yoga Lunchbox this year, proving that lists and titles with the word Best in them always do well, especially when combined with talented writing.

I was surprised that our always-funny columnist Gabrielle Harris, The Suburban Yogini didn’t make the list. She has been popular with her lighthearted and insightful articles like How not to screw up your children (too much). Gabrielle is also leaving us to pursue other writing opportunities, and we wish her the best for 2013.

Our newest columnist, Melissa Billington, was handicapped by time – those articles published earlier had more time to get seen. Melissa’s column Ear2Earth looks in-depth at our chakras and the ways imbalances are reflected in society.

Big thanks to all my columnists and guest authors. I couldn’t publish The Yoga Lunchbox without you and I appreciate all the voluntary offerings you make.

Thank you to all the YLB readers, especially those of you who take time to comment, or email. I’ve had some lovely, heart-warming emails this year that have helped me realise I’m on track with this website. Like life and like yoga, it’s a work in progress.

Many blessings for Christmas and New Year. We’ll be back better than ever in 2013 with the launch of our first book, Forty Days of Yoga.

Stay tuned!

Many blessings,

Kara-Leah

Top Twenty YLB Articles for 2012, as judged by Google Analytics

1. The Top Six Best Yoga Magazines in the World
2. Parampara – The Importance of Lineage in Yoga
3. Thinking about Quitting Your Job to be a Yoga Teacher? 10 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself First
4. Free Your Pelvis and the Rest will Follow
5. Is Bikram Choudhury really an Alien?
6. Mark Whitwell Promising us Love, Sex and Intimacy in Seven Minutes a Day
7. 10 Reasons Why I’m Excited to Choose Corporate Work over Teaching Yoga
8. Yoga Morning Glories: What’s Your Practice Look Like?
9. Is Reference Point Therapy a Healing Modality that Truly Works?
10. Confessions of an Ex-Relationships Manipulator and Control Freak
11. The Secret World of Vaginal Steaming and Maya Abdominal Therapy
12. Today I found my Inner Witch and she Denounced Yoga
13. Yoga can Help Heal Mental Illness Big Time
14. Inside a Forty Day Hot Yoga Challenge: Will Hazel Go the Distance?
15. Looking for the Man of Your Dreams? Don’t
16. How to Meditate in Four Easy Steps
17. Positively Pitta: How Understanding your Dosha can Revolutionize the Way You Eat
18. How Teaching Yoga can Trigger Your Issues
19. A Video Interview with Swami Shantimurti of Ashram Yoga
20. Managing Fear when Teaching Yoga

Love what we do here at The Yoga Lunchbox and want to support us? Please copy and paste this list, keeping both the titles and links to the articles intact and re-published them on your website or blog.

Every time another website links to The YLB, it tells Google we’re doing great things and we’re more likely to get search engine traffic.