Copyright Free Content Curation Challenge

 

Photo https://unsplash.com/@rexcuando Curating musical content which complies with being copyright free, royalty free or available for free use is often challenging. I've written about music in class vs no music in class previously, but this topic has risen back up into my radar. Our studio owner has recently stopped paying the nearly $900/year fee to ASCAP which allowed us to play licensed music in the yoga studio. The majority of our classes are taught with no music, but the ASCAP licensing is needed even if the music being played happens before or after a yoga class is led. I've begun using searches in Spotify to attempt to curate copyright free playlists for our classes. It seems that not all the songs that come up with a "copyright free" or "royalty free" search query in Spotify are actually copyright/royalty free. I've had several copyright strikes on my audio class recordings posted to YouTube for tracks that were results for copyright/royalty free searches. What is also interesting is the copyright strikes I've received claiming the song that was playing in the background as belonging to an artist/record label when it was definitevly not that song by the artist/label claming that track as theirs.  This happened recently for the Journey Into Power 505 class where I used a playlist of copyright free beats in Spotify. Playlist link. The Orchard Music claims a copyright strike against this class recording at the 32:57 minute mark claiming that this song is Long Beach by Beatmasta. I know that this isn't the song playing at this point in the class (it is actually "Beat 1" from a Royalty Free Hip Hop Beat Album on Spotify). I did some searching online to try to find "Long Beach" so I could hear it and compare. Fun fact, The Orchard Music doesn't even allow streaming of this recording in the United States. In the past I've had spurious copyright claims laid agains the three OMs heard at the beginning of each class recording as being День 3 -- Новые начинания, and me making a crystal bowl ring as being Requiem (claimed by Believe Music). These copyright claimswere easy to dispute as I knew that there was no music at all in those classes receiving the copyright strike. It is harder now that some of my classes have what I believe to be is copyright free music in them. It seems that I can't always be sure of what my search results in Spotify tell me. I know I could download music from The Free Music Archive or the You Tube Music Library but the ease of using AirPlay from a Spotify playlist has been an irresistable low barrier to entry. This does encourage me to get back to work on making my own original music, putting it in Spotify and thereby being able to 100% refute any copyright claim on a class of mine going forward. Stay tuned for advancements in this space regarding copyright free music made by yours truly. Disputing incorrect copyright strikes would be more meaningful if my YouTube channel were monitized, but it isn't. All the content I publish is free of any monitization. The copyright strikes I receive are a mere annoyance as they have no financial impact to me, but I find it irritataing that a record label is claming rights to what is not theirs in hopes of making some money off of the content I've uploaded. I can point to two very excellent musicians who have a slew of albums/eps/songs available for streaming in Spotify: Chad Crouch and Karl Casey. Very different ends of the spectrum and both of them are extremely prolific!

Making a Generic Equivalent Aromatherapy Blend Through Trial and Error

 

Have you wanted to figure out how to make a generic equivalent for an aromatherapy scent blend that you love, but don't know how to begin? That's where I was a few weeks ago. A friend of mine told me she'd been buying a blend that retails for $15 for .5 ounces. I told her to hold up and let me break down the ingredients and make a close-enough version of it.

I hand't done this process before, but I was certain that I could make a go of it. I did some digging and found a few websites that give some general guidelines for ratios of basenotes, middle notes and top notes, as well as how to convert a given number of drops of a scent into a percentage or a mL measurment.

Top, Middle and Basenotes

Drops to Percentages

Drops to mL

The ingredients in this blend I was deconstructing were most likely listed in order of most to least. Sweet orange, lavender, basil, peppermint, Roman chamomile, and patchouli. I looked up each ingredient to see if it was classified as a top, middle or base note, and this as a guide to cross reference what my nose detected in the original blend as being the prominent and underlying scents.

Sweet Orange - topnote
Lavender - topnote
Patchouli - basenote
Peppermint - topnote
Basil - middlenote
Chamomile - middlenote

I started small, adding the following number of drops. This got me to pretty close but not enough sweet orange.

Sweet Orange 6
Lavender 6
Patchouli 2
Peppermint 4
Basil 2
Chamomile 1

Next round - this is the keeper. Smells close enough to make everyone happy :)

Sweet Orange 9
Lavender 6
Patchouli 2
Peppermint 4
Basil 2
Chamomile 1

24 total drops = 100%, therfore calculating the percentages of each ingredient involves dividing 100 by 24 and from this we get the multiplier for each ingredient to achieve it's percentage of 100 drops (5mL)

Sweet Orange 9 x 4.16 = 37.5%
Lavender 6 x 4.16 = 25% (rounding up)
Patchouli 2 x 4.16 = 8%
Peppermint 4 x 4.16 = 17% (rounding up)
Basil 2 x 4.16 = 8%
Chamomile 1 x 4.16 = 4.16%

Now to find the 30mL amount based on the percentages.. google calculator to the rescue

Sweet Orange 9 x 4.16 = 37.5%
37.5% of 30mL
Lavender 6 x 4.16 = 25% (rounding up)
25% of 30mL
Patchouli 2 x 4.16 = 8%
8% of 30mL
Peppermint 4 x 4.16 = 17% (rounding up)
17% of 30mL
Basil 2 x 4.16 = 8%
8% of 30mL
Chamomile 1 x 4.16 = 4.16%
1% of 30mL

I took an empty 30mL bottle I had, put a piece of white tape up the side and began marking halfway measurments on the side of the bottle to create some guidelines for me to start adding the larger percentage ingredients into the bottle. This was a rough order of magnitude guideline, not intended to be 100% accurate, but to get me into the ballpark.

The generic equivalent blend was a resounding success. My friend agreed that it smelled pretty much like the name brand blend she had been buying for years. Based on the price per ounce per ingredient, a 1 ounce blend of this generic has a total cost of $4.05. To be fair, I did have to buy a lot more chamomile oil than I will likely ever use in my lifetime, but my total cost outlay for the ingredients is equivalent to six .5 oz bottles (a total of 3 ounces) of the brand name scent. For this price, I have enough oils to make 10 ounces of this blend. This was also a worthwhile experiment in scent deconstruction, calculating percentages, ratios and volume conversions!

Baptiste Power Yoga and American College of Sports Medicine Physical Activity Guidelines

 

Photo - Breath and Body Yoga Austin TX

The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) serves as the largest sports medicine and exercise science organization in the world. "With more than 16,000 members and 34,000 certified professionals worldwide, ACSM remains dedicated to advancing and integrating scientific research to provide educational and practical applications of exercise science and sports medicine." ACSM makes the guidelines for what energy cost physical activity needs to meet in order for it to qualify as moderate physical activity. 

Dr. Sally Sherman Ph.D. and her team led the scientific study of the physical fitness aspects of Baptiste Power Yoga and have published the paper "ENERGY EXPENDITURE IN YOGA VERSUS OTHER FORMS OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY". She gathered 40 yoga participants and connected them to laboratory equipment that would measure their oxygen intake as well as their heart rate. The participants performed Journey Into Power in a non-heated room, with a pace of five breaths per pose. Each breath was a two-count for the inhale and a two-count for the exhale. The data shows that Journey Into Power meets the metabolic criteria to be categorized as moderate-intensity physical activity. The physical activity guidelines for Americans were published In 2020 and now it includes vinyasa yoga as a viable way to meet the guidelines. This was not the case in the previous guidelines so that was big news. 

Dr. Sherman has also worked to publish another study titled "Feasibility of Integration of Yoga in a Behavioral Weight Loss Intervention: A Randomized Trial" which concluded that yoga was good for weight loss and participants preferred 20 to 40 minute classes over longer (60 minute) classes. 

This is all very good news that power yoga or vinyasa style yoga is becoming more integrated into the popular mindset of what is physical exercise. The physical aspect of a yoga practice is just one of the beneficial parts, but having more people become aware of the physical benefits of yoga will ultimately lead to more people doing yoga and reaping the mental and spiritual benefits of a yoga practice over time.

Post settings Labels Baptiste Power Vinyasa, Journey Into Power Published on 4/27/22 3:52 PM Permalink https://www.jentechyoga.com/2022/04/baptiste-power-yoga-recognized-by.html Location Search Description Options