Yoga Journal

Yoga Journal is an American media company that publishes a magazine, a website, DVDs, tablet editions, and puts on conferences devoted to yoga, food and nutrition, fitness, wellness, and fashion and beauty.

Beginnings and growth

Yoga Journal was started in May 1975 by the California Yoga Teachers Association, which included William Staniger, Chairman (aka William Golden since 1982), Rama Jyoti Vernon, President, Janis Paulsen, Secretary/Treasurer, and board members Ike and Judith Lasater, Rose Garfinkle, and Jean Girardot. William Staniger was Yoga Journal's founding editor. Judith Lasater was Copy Editor, Janis Paulsen, Elmer Brunsman, and Jean Girardot were Assistant Editors, and Ike Lasater was Business and Advertising Director. Their goal was to create a magazine that would unite the growing yoga community and provide "material that combines the essence of classical yoga with the latest understandings of modern science."

By the mid-1990s, as yoga's popularity in America grew, circulation for Yoga Journal reached 66,000. During these years, key figures at the magazine included former publisher Michael Glicksohn, former editors-in-chief Stephen Bodian and Rick Fields and former longtime managing editor Linda Cogozzo. In the fall of 1998, John Abbott, a former investment banker at Citicorp and an avid yoga practitioner, bought the magazine, and brought in Kathryn Arnold as editor-in-chief. In January 2000, they redesigned and relaunched the magazine. Since their arrival, the paid circulation has grown from 90,000 to 350,000; the readership is now over 1,300,000.^[2]

Yoga Journal has won many major media awards including five consecutive Western Publications Association's Maggie Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine," and the Award's top honor for "Best Overall Consumer Publication."^[3] The magazine has won four Folio Editorial Excellence Awards for "Best Health and Fitness Magazine " in the country.

In September 2006, the magazine was bought by enthusiast publisher Active Interest Media which publishes Vegetarian Times, Backpacker, and other consumer enthusiast titles.^[4] Forbes magazine has called the Yoga Journal website "the Web's most expansive and impressive Yoga site."^[5]

Editorial Focus

Each issue of Yoga Journal contains several in-depth feature stories that touch on the themes of yoga, food and nutrition, fitness, wellness, and fashion and beauty, as well as the following columns

Yoga in America

Yoga Journal's 2012 survey, Yoga in America found the yoga market to be worth more than $10 billion per year. The data, collected by the Harris Interactive Service Bureau (HISB), shows that 20.4 million people practice yoga in America.^[7]

Yoga conferences

Yoga Journal hosts several major conferences a year with top yoga teachers in the United States, including Rodney Yee, Ana Forrest, Seane Corn, Tias Little, and many others.

2014 Yoga Journal LIVE dates

• January 16–20: San Francisco, California
• April 24–28: New York, New York
• July 10–14: San Diego, California
• September 14 - September 21: Estes Park, Colorado
• November 13 - November 17: Florida

2013 conference dates

• January 17–21: San Francisco, California
• April 4–8: New York, New York
• September 22 - September 29: Estes Park, Colorado
• October 31 - November 3: Florida

International editions

Yoga Journal currently has nine international editions which are published in Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Spain, and Thailand.

References

External links

• Official website