Launch Announcement: Centre for Yoga Studies

This is the first “official launch accouncement” on oDharma – all of the other websites in the oDharma portfolio were already in existence before oDharma itself came to be. I could not wish for a more purpose-filled project to announce.

I have two Yoga teachers, Ziva Kinrot in Israel and her teacher Paul Harvey from the UK. During my first years of Yoga retreats I remember that during the last days of the retreat they would sit to talk about plans for next year. Then Paul would disappear with his laptop computer and by the next day his website would have updated information about the plans for next year’s retreat. I was awed by this. This is before I knew anything about websites or even heard of WordPress.

WordPress came to my attention shortly after I started playing around with building a website for myself. It was then that I realized what an exceptional challenge Paul had overcome. His website was a collection of static HTML pages that he kept updated by manually editing them with Dreamweaver. I gave up trying to create a website that way. Then WordPress came along and provided a far better solution.

For a couple of years I had been hoping for an opportunity to help Paul make a transition into WordPress. I was confident he would enjoy it and that it would make it easier for him to share the reservoire of quality teachings he carries with him. At one point I learned from Ziva that Paul opened a Facebook account where he was sharing and communicating with others. I don’t use Facebook and I am strongly opposed to it and so I couldn’t enjoy and partake in his presence there. I wrote Paul about it and in time that communication blossomed into a project which went online yesterday – The Centre for Yoga Studies.

The project was challenging, inspiring and motivating and it gave me an opportunity to try my luck with WordPress capabilities I had not attempted before:

• Integrating Three Websites: One of the primary objectives was to integrate three separate websites into one: the main cYS website, a separate website for a teaching center in Bristol and just-started website dedicated to the Yoga Sutra (all three websites now lead to one integrated site. This led to a design which catered to one website which had three different sections (to which a fourth was later added). This gave birth to the first lines of code that shortly after grew into a side-kick project called Thections.
• Teachers Directory: The websites includes a registry of Yoga teachers and it was implemented using some of the latest capabilities introduced in WordPress.

I am excited to see how this project develops. I am curious to see how Paul will utilize blogging and to see what kind of interaction and conversation will take shape with others in the online Yoga community.

Here is a screenshot of the previous website:

And here is a screenshot of the new website:

This project confirms my choice to focus on purpose-driven projects in which I experience a sense of balance and correct effort (which I believe reflects in the work itself). It comes to me and to oDharma as a blessing.