I’m a yoga therapist, health journalist, mother, and grandmother with a passion for helping people harness the powerful medicine of movement. Physical activity is essential to good health, and yoga can be particularly effective because it’s a holistic discipline that enhances all aspects of wellbeing—physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual. I started taking a weekly yoga class in my early 20s to stretch tight muscles and relieve stress from my busy job as a Washington Post reporter. Nearly 50 years later, yoga is central to my life, with practices that have helped me through several major health challenges, and kept me balanced, fit, and centered in our unpredictable world.
In recent years, there’s been a growing appreciation that yoga is not just for slim, bendy, twentysomethings, but can offer profound physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual benefits to people of all ages, sizes, and health conditions. Much of this increased awareness is due to the work of Jivana Heyman, director of the non-profit Accessible Yoga Association, whose mission statement proclaims that “all people—regardless of ability or background—deserve equal access to yoga.” Heyman has spent more than 20 years teaching yoga to people with disabilities, with an emphasis on community building and social engagement. In this book, he offers inspiring and practical guidance on how to break down complex yoga practices in ways that make them accessible, enjoyable, and healing for anyone—regardless of limitations or challenges.
“A treasure trove . . . what Yoga, capital Y, is all about.” —Donna Farhi “Nothing less than a gem.” —Judith Lasater “A vital tool.” —Book Riot
This daring, visionary book revolutionizes yoga practice, making it truly accessible to everyone—in every body, at any age, and in any state of health
Yoga practice has so much to offer us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. But many of us feel discouraged to practice because we see young, slim, flexible, well, and able-bodied people dominating yoga spaces. Yet, yoga is truly a practice for all—conferring enormous benefits to our overall well-being as…
I'm an artist, writer, teacher, and longtime yoga practitioner. I started practicing yoga in my early twenties during a difficult time in my life and the peace, grounding, and community that I discovered in yoga have stayed with me over the years, growing and evolving over time. One of my favorite experiences was the opportunity to teach children and teens who had never even heard of yoga before. Now I'm a professor at San Diego State University and also started and run a statewide program called Prison Arts Collective, bringing art programs to people who are incarcerated. We often include mindfulness and breathing exercises along with art.
This book can be enjoyed by adults and children alike and provides a guide to a lesser-known aspect of yoga, mudras, or yoga for the hands. The author explains the spiritual history of mudras and provides guidelines for how to practice 52 distinct mudras, including the name, an overview of the meaning, and what it is intended to support in the body or mind. The back of the book also includes some basic yoga postures and several helpful indices. When approaching lightly and playfully, I find it relaxing, empowering, and anxiety-reducing to practice mudras.
Mudras - also playfully called 'finger power points' are yoga positions for your hands and fingers. they can be practiced sitting, lying down, standing or walking, at any time and place!
Schooled in the traditional knowledge of this Eastern art of healing, Gertrud Hirschi, the well-known Swiss yoga teacher and author of Basic Yoga for Everybody, shows you how these easy techniques can recharge your personal energy reserves and improve your quality of living. Use these mysterious healing gestures to calm the stress, aggravations and frustrations of every day life. In Mudras: Yoga…
I've always been fascinated by yoga and the wonderful stories about yogis. When I was in the fourth grade, studying the subject of 'India', I taught myself to stand on my head and fold my legs in the lotus position. I love practicing yoga – every morning, I thank the Gurus and teachers from whom I learned! I've taught yoga for almost 40 years now and strongly believe that the practice and teaching of yoga, done with devotion and love can transform one's life for the good. I wrote 7 books about yoga (the last, Yoga in Nature is forthcoming) I regularly write articles on yoga and have translated two of B.K.S. Iyengar's books into Hebrew.
I first met my Guru, B.K.S Iyengar, in 1988; since then, I kept coming back to his center in Pune, India, every other year for a month of study, until his passing away in 2014. Light on Yoga is ever a source of inspiration for me. I come back to it almost daily when I am on my yoga mat, I read and study the instruction given by Iyengar while trying to perform the asanas shown in the photos.B.K.S Iyengar is a renowned teacher and Guru. Light on Yoga, which came out in the '60s, soon became 'the bible of yoga.' It contains photos of Iyengar demonstrating the asanas (yoga postures) with amazing precision and clarity.
The definitive guide to the philosophy and practice of Yoga--the ancient healing discipline for body and mind--by its greatest living teacher. Light on Yoga provides complete descriptions and illustrations of all the positions and breathing exercises. Features a foreword by Yehudi Menuhin. Illustrations throughout.
I'm an artist, writer, teacher, and longtime yoga practitioner. I started practicing yoga in my early twenties during a difficult time in my life and the peace, grounding, and community that I discovered in yoga have stayed with me over the years, growing and evolving over time. One of my favorite experiences was the opportunity to teach children and teens who had never even heard of yoga before. Now I'm a professor at San Diego State University and also started and run a statewide program called Prison Arts Collective, bringing art programs to people who are incarcerated. We often include mindfulness and breathing exercises along with art.
This is my all-time favorite yoga book—and I have lots and lots of books on yoga that I really love! The main reason I relate to this one is that it is written in a way that embodies what yoga is and means by someone with a depth of knowledge in the practice—the author studied for years with one of the world's leading yoga instructors, B. K. S. Iyengar. With brief and insightful entries on topics as wide-ranging as transformation, gravity, time, the eagle, and organizations, Scaravelli gradually and generously invites readers into understanding the relationship between ourselves and the world, and through it, yoga. You will find instructions for breathing and postures, but more importantly, you will find the wisdom, expansiveness, interconnections, and joy that define yoga. The is interspersed with beautiful images of art and nature and a number of beautiful photographs of the author in her eighties…
A fully revised and updated edition of the classic yoga book, with a new foreword by B.K.S. Iyengar.
For more than twenty-five years, until her death at ninety-one, Vanda Scaravelli helped transform bodies and lives with her innovative approach to yoga through the proper alignment of the spine. She listened to the body and worked with—instead of against—it. She used gravity, grounding, and breathing to achieve dramatic improvements in health and wellbeing.
Awakening the Spine offers a gentle way to achieve and maintain overall health and a naturally supple spine at any age. Scaravelli’s lasting message reminds readers that, “if…
I’m a yoga therapist, health journalist, mother, and grandmother with a passion for helping people harness the powerful medicine of movement. Physical activity is essential to good health, and yoga can be particularly effective because it’s a holistic discipline that enhances all aspects of wellbeing—physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual. I started taking a weekly yoga class in my early 20s to stretch tight muscles and relieve stress from my busy job as a Washington Post reporter. Nearly 50 years later, yoga is central to my life, with practices that have helped me through several major health challenges, and kept me balanced, fit, and centered in our unpredictable world.
Yoga is much more than a workout, and the difference between a good class and a great one often centers on the instructor’s ability to inspire students to make a deeper connection—with themselves, with others, and with the world. In this practical and illuminating book, experienced instructors Sage Rountree and Alexandra Desiato offer a wealth of information designed to give yoga teachers essential tools to find their own, unique voice and take their classes to the next level. The book includes a section of 54 complete themes followed by blank temples and helpful prompts to create your own themes. Amidst bookshelves crowded with volumes on how to teach postures, this book stands out as a uniquely-helpful exploration of how to teach yoga.
Create class themes with yoga philosophy, inspirational quotes, and simple concepts to inspire and motivate students
Experienced yoga instructors Sage Rountree and Alexandra DeSiato give yoga teachers the tools to find their voice and tap into innate wisdom. The authors offer ready-made, detailed themes to use in classes and provide flexible templates for building a toolkit of themes for future use. Teaching Yoga Beyond the Poses offers guidance for both new and experienced teachers starting with a section on voice, authenticity, emulation, phrasing, practice, repetition, and finding inspiration. It continues with a second section that contains fifty-four complete themes that…
I've been a practicing yogi and Buddhist for 50 years. For me these lifelong practices started with reading, or as my Zen teacher calls it, being a “Book Buddhist.” Buddhism and Yoga are not typically called “faith-based” practices, but there is an element of faith — it is faith in the process. But you can’t have faith until you have experienced the benefits of practice. The unconventional lives of the yogis told in these books illustrate for all of us how we, too, can develop wisdom, joy, and compassion. I found each of these books really, really fun to read and I’ve gained much insight and inspiration for my own spiritual path.
You might recognize the author’s name – she is a regular contributor to the Opinion Page of The New York Times. In this book, she has used her journalistic skills to uncover the layers of Indra Devi, from her birth in Russia to her status in Hollywood as one of the first yoga teachers to the stars. Indra Devi was a longtime devotee of Krishnamurti, and the first-ever woman to convince the great yoga master Krishnamacharya to teach her yoga. I remember knowing about her back in the ’70s when I was a novice yogi/college student in southern California and Devi was still teaching privately in Los Angeles. But only through reading this book did I learn how much her work contributed to the current popularity and acceptance of yoga in western culture.
When the woman who would become Indra Devi was born in Russia in 1899, yoga was virtually unknown outside of India. By the time of her death, in 2002, it was being practiced everywhere, from Brooklyn to Berlin to Ulaanbaatar. In The Goddess Pose, New York Times best-selling author Michelle Goldberg traces the life of the incredible woman who brought yoga to the West and in so doing paints a sweeping picture of the twentieth century.
Born into the minor aristocracy (as Eugenia Peterson), Devi grew up in the midst of one of the most turbulent times in human history.…
My passion for teaching yoga stems from over a decade as a yoga teacher. I’ve taught a variety of populations including college athletes, aging practitioners, and prenatal and postpartum moms and people. I’ve written two books on yoga; one is about how we can use yoga as we age healthily and the other is a helpful guide for yoga teachers who would like to incorporate philosophical theming in their classes. I know what it means to feel stuck in a rut as a yoga teacher, and I have so often counted on these well-loved books to help me find my way out of that rut and into inspired teaching.
Desikachar’s clear wisdom inThe Heart of Yoga can’t be understated. Returning to this book reminds me of why I love yoga, why I teach yoga, and why I do yoga. Much of the value of this book is in Desikachar’s simple prose and exposition regarding yoga philosophy. He ends many chapters with a Q & A section, answering questions he anticipates readers will have. And while there are translations in abundance of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, Desikachar’s translations have real-world applicability. His approach to yoga helps us understand why the practice has endured for so many years—and it reminds yoga teachers that bringing yoga to our students is an undertaking of immense importance.
Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who lived to be over 100 years old, was one of the greatest yogis of the modern era. Elements of Krishnamacharya's teaching have become well known around the world through the work of B. K. S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, and Indra Devi, who all studied with Krishnamacharya. Krishnamacharya's son T. K. V. Desikachar lived and studied with his father all his life and now teaches the full spectrum of Krishnamacharya's yoga. Desikachar has based his method on Krishnamacharya's fundamental concept of viniyoga, which maintains that practices must be continually adapted to the individual's changing needs to achieve…
I was introduced to meditation through a hatha yoga course I took as a college student. That’s when I first became enthralled with eastern philosophy. I studied and later taught these subjects becoming a College Professor in them. I’m also a musician and massage therapist. I consider music, meditation, yoga, massage to be beautiful healing modalities with endless transformative possibilities. My various books have been translated into French, Polish, Romanian, Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Bulgarian, and more. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Meditation (co-written with Eve Adamson) has recently become available as an audiobook on Audible.com. This book has turned thousands of people onto the meditative path and I hope it will you too.
This book introduced me to a steady practice of yoga postures. I read it daily and with practice I was eventually able to even do the headstand! The pictures in it are beautifully done and inspiring. This book encouraged me to travel to many Sivananda Yoga Ashrams, where I studied for weeks at a time submerging myself into the yoga lifestyle. I learned a great deal about living in yoga thru this book.
The essential companion for beginning and experienced yogis alike! Now with fresh, colorful pages throughout, The Sivananda Companion to Yoga remains the classic guide to yoga. Featuring easy-to-follow instructions, inspirational teaching, and detailed illustrations, this authoritative guide covers every aspect of the yoga lifestyle—including relaxation, exercise, dietary guidelines, breathing, and meditation.
A highly regarded organization for yoga studies and practices, the Sivananda Yoga Center created the first edition of The Sivananda Companion to Yoga in 1983. Since its publication, it has sold more than 700,000 copies worldwide and has become a standard text for both yoga students and teachers.
I’m a yoga therapist, health journalist, mother, and grandmother with a passion for helping people harness the powerful medicine of movement. Physical activity is essential to good health, and yoga can be particularly effective because it’s a holistic discipline that enhances all aspects of wellbeing—physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual. I started taking a weekly yoga class in my early 20s to stretch tight muscles and relieve stress from my busy job as a Washington Post reporter. Nearly 50 years later, yoga is central to my life, with practices that have helped me through several major health challenges, and kept me balanced, fit, and centered in our unpredictable world.
Much of the Western approach to yoga views it as a fitness activity and focuses primarily on the physical body. Yet authentic yoga practice is rooted in the reality that the body is not separate from the psychospiritual forces that animate it. In this book, Tias Little who is one of the foremost yoga instructors in North America—offers a guided tour of the body’s physical anatomy, then uses this awareness to explore the fascinating and mysterious arena of the subtle body. Drawing on ancient texts and modern science, Little explains the yogic view of the energetic body (prana, nadis, and chakras), explores the esoteric subtleties of the mind-body connection, and provides thought-provoking insights into the secrets of our innermost being.
With his expert teachings, philosophical insights, and pragmatic imagery, world-class yoga instructor Tias Little turns the anatomy of the physical body into a tool for navigating the subtle body
If you spend considerable time doing yoga, you begin to see that it is about much more than just the body—the practice of yoga in fact reveals that the body is in no way separate from the psychospiritual forces that animate it. Here, Tias Little provides a way to understand these forces as they relate to an integrated yoga of body, mind, and spirit. He unites somatic concepts and wisdom teachings…
I'm an author, movement coach, and yoga teacher. I've been practicing yoga on and off for about 48 years. I was introduced to yoga by my mom through a really old book called Be Young with Yoga at 3 years old. Yoga has been a part of my entire existence in one way or another. I have had the honour and privilege to study with yoga teachers and educators for the past 30+ years and it has been life-changing. I have been a yoga teacher and movement coach for 30+ years, I have watched yoga make sad people feel better, injured people get strong, and shy people become leaders in their communities around equity and diversity.
In my humble opinion one of the best and only books that address yoga, diet culture, pose adaptation, yoga history, body image, and progressive accessibility. Helping readers and practitioners to find their level of practice exactly where they are. You can start as a true beginner and progress to challenging arm balances and poses with this book.
Find freedom in your yoga practice with this empowering guide from beloved yoga teacher and social justice activist Dianne Bondy and Yoga International editor-in-chief Kat Heagberg.
Yoga Where You Are welcomes readers of all backgrounds, body sizes, and abilities into the practice of yoga. Dianne Bondy and Kat Heagberg offer everything you need to know to build a custom yoga practice that supports you exactly where you are--now and at every stage of your life's journey.
Yoga Where You Are discusses how yoga intersects with body image, introduces essential information on elements like breathwork and meditation, and celebrates yoga's diverse…
