Yoga Journal (YJ) celebrates its 50th year in publication this summer. For many of those years, its content across multiple platforms—from its print and online publication to its practice media to its live conferences—has both reflected and helped to shape the lived practices of yoga students and teachers across the country. Indeed, the culture of yoga in America—in the Western hemisphere, even—would not have developed the way it has without Yoga Journal. 

At the height of its print circulation around 2005, Yoga Journal reached over 350,000 subscribers. It enjoyed over a decade at that level of circulation, establishing itself as one of the most robust and influential health and wellness magazines of its time. It also developed a strong presence online and embraced web-based publishing. By 2017, though, its print readership had begun to decline. Responding to the rise of more diverse digital platforms and alternate engagement models, it began to reduce and eventually limit print publication. 

Despite those developments as well as a series of leadership, staffing, and ownership changes, Yoga Journal continued to grow and diversify its online offerings, and web traffic, social media interaction, and practice subscribers reached an apex around 2019. Since then, the publication has been embraced within a group of outdoor, wellness and movement publications owned by Outside, Inc. and is now offered as part of its subscription bundle, Outside+. Even in its latest incarnation, though, Yoga Journal continues to inform the public about a wide range of practices, poses, teachings, philosophy, meditations and more to continue to support engagement with yoga worldwide.

Shared Intention and Purpose

Yoga Journal as First Teacher

Marnie Memmolo, a senior teacher based in Atlanta, says that YJ’s instruction carried her beyond her early student days and into teaching. “My first 200-hour training didn’t have a sophisticated curriculum and tailored manuals like YTT trainings of today,” she explained. “Back then, we were scribes at the feet of our trainer, and most of the supplementary information came from YJ articles.” Susan Amick, an Atlanta teacher and minister who has taught all over the world, said that the magazine was especially helpful to her when she first started teaching. “I loved the simple, colorful drawings of sequences, which I did copy and share with students, even in India.”

Access to teaching lineages was paramount to the magazine’s mission, according to Memmolo and Ferretti, which made it a major influence on yoga in America, particularly before the rise of the internet and social media. “Going back 25 years, yoga info was sparse,” says Memmolo. “YJ was a trusted authority for access to yoga information from contributors that actually studied first-hand with many of the great masters. YJ’s teachers, such as Patricia Waldon, Mary Taylor, John Schumacher and Rodney Yee, had, in turn, studied with BKS Iyengar. Maty Ezraty and Richard Freeman were students of Pattabhi Jois. Hari Kaur Khalsa was a student of Yogi Bhavan. 

“YJ’s instructors passed down that lineage to people of my generation, or they blended [the teachings of] masters to create their own American style.” That had a strong influence on shaping yoga in America today, she says.

“I think we saw our role as tuning into what the master teachers were teaching,” says Ferretti, “and then we translated that to the page so that people could have access.” Not everybody could study with the likes of Patricia Walden, John Schumacher and Maty Ezraty, so they deferred to them as the experts. “I guess we saw ourselves more as interpreters and educators,” says Ferretti.

The very existence of Acroyoga, for example, is in part due to the live conferences hosted by Yoga Journal. Students could experience something new—with the authority and blessing of the magazine. 

“We were a great [early] venue,” says Ferretti, “both conference-wise and then magazine-wise for Acroyoga. I remember at an early conference, Acroyoga founders Jenny Sauer-Klein and Jason Nemer were there outside of classrooms just offering to fly people. No one had even seen it before, and they were demonstrating … And that built into a huge movement.”

In addition to yoga styles, adjacent practices and interrelated fields such as Thai massage, meditation, mindfulness, Ayurveda and Buddhism found a place to get known and flourish in the publication’s various media outlets, and the relationship between the magazine and yoga grew more established. For example, Yura first learned of Thai massage and its relationship to yoga from the pages of the magazine—establishing a relationship most students take for granted today. “I read an article about Thai massage in Yoga Journal, and when Saul David Raye came to Atlanta, I was delighted to attend his workshop. From there, I sought out trainings, and I’m still practicing that today, 25 years later.” 

Eyes to the Future 

Over the years, Yoga Journal has weathered criticism for its representation of who does yoga and how, for the way it has navigated the sometimes competing priorities of business and yoga, and for the ways it has codified certain aspects of Western yoga culture at the expense of others. Both Schettler and Ferretti confirm that those have been challenging lines to walk, yet both come back to their earnest intention to serve and disseminate information with clarity and dedication. One could say that this is yoga practice in action, and it’s never easy or black and white. 


So, with eyes on the future, Yoga Journal is shifting, too. “Maybe we needed to not have yoga celebrities anymore,” says Ferretti. “We’re no longer in a place, in terms of yoga in America, of having a handful of teachers, where you hang on their every word,” says Schettler. Rather, she emphasizes that YJ now functions less as the educator and more as a platform for a diverse range of educators and teaching voices. She believes that is the future of the Yoga Journal. 

“We are always coming back to our roots [with] articles that beautifully articulate ancient traditions and practices, lessons about the application to everyday life,” says Ferretti. “But we are dedicated to having a multiplicity of content on the site for everyone, a multiplicity of voices and perspectives.”

She feels strongly about a need “to normalize every body being a part of yoga” and sees the magazine as a platform for a variety of teachers and students to share their experiences and insights, feel understood and make connections. “We want to create space for discussion and understanding,” says Ferretti. “There is this abundance of yoga content out there, and our question is: How do we continue to support what people have been experiencing and also maybe tease them a little further forward in terms of that integration [of] yoga and life? Over the expanse of a week, a month, we want everyone who comes to our site to see themselves reflected there and to think, “Yoga Journal gets me.”

As Yoga Journal celebrates its 50th anniversary and looks back on its influence and forward to its future role in shaping and reflecting yoga culture, it remains dedicated to “this very earnest exploration and education around all facets of yoga,” says Shettler. “It’s humbling to be part of this long legacy.” ❧

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Patricia Schmidt, C-IAYT, E-RYT 500, YACEP, is a certified yoga therapist specializing in pelvic health, accessible yoga and yoga for cancer support. She is a Franklin Method trainer, Roll Model method teacher and somatic movement specialist. To learn more, visit PLSYoga.com.