In spite of the verb-less title I wanted to check out this game. I was a yoga teacher back during college days and early twenties. Nintendo has been pushing the edu-tainment envelope for a while. First with the onslaught of brain games, and then followed by the Wii Fit. But Yoga on DS? I thought it would pose too much of a challenge to do adequately. But what I found was a pleasant surprise.

The Let’s Yoga experience has you choose a male or female avatar. I recommend that you choose your biological gender this time since the exercise will be slightly different depending on gender based body parts and flexibility. The customizations for your yoga avatar isn’t very deep. But they saved space on the chip for better things. It is divided into Yoga Class or Yoga Master Class. This gives you a chance to get a self directed workout if you prefer. I had never thought of or experienced Yoga workouts that were targeted for specific ills. I chose the ones for Menstrual Cramps, Menstrual Balance, Helps with Migraines, Ease Menopause, Aides Digestion from the Body section. I also wanted to experience a few of the workouts in the Mind and Beauty sections too. Each one was a 3 to 5 minutes set of poses and information about how Yoga helps stimulate the organs and gets them to work. It also had a breath meter that would pulse along slowly so that you could time the movements with the breathing that is so important in Yoga. It tells you how each mudra and chakra works along with the movements.

The Let’s Yoga is very informative. It doesn’t replace having a real instructor there to look at what you are doing and assure that you don’t pull something, and that you get the most from the stretch. It is a good way to learn about Yoga, and would be ideal to continue working out on your own if you go to Yoga class with a real person teacher once a week.

There are few criticisms that I have of this game. One is that the avatars have an oddly shaped pelvis and back. They look a bit like rag doll physics dolls and the way that they move is inhuman. That uncanny valley was very noticeable on these characters. You can’t expect a human body to do some of those things, the lower back is one of the most sensitive areas to wear and tear and vulnerable in exercise. In the Mind segment there were some esoteric instructions that could have used more information especially for beginning meditators. “Focus your awareness inward” might sound perfectly understandable to a student of metaphysics, Zen thoughts are not so common in America. “Focus your breath down the front of your thighs” sounds a bit too vague. The colors were too pastel and washed out. The resolution and physics on the models could have been better.

This was a very innovative way to learn Yoga. I found it to be impressive for the limitations of the DS. I would not mind having it around to refer to and to add to a regular Yoga routine on a weekly basis. I give Let’s Yoga DS an hour glass figure eight out of ten.