A good yoga book can bring needed insight, inspiration or motivation to a stale practice. I’ve also found reading books to be a great way to slowly gain insight and understanding of the deeper dimensions and history of yoga. Out of the five new yoga books featured in our autumn review, there are three geared towards yoga teachers, one for beginners, and one for athletes. I hope you find these titles as unique and interesting to read as I have.
Hit Reset: Revolutionary Yoga for Athletes by Erin Taylor
This 200-page yoga book is organized by the ten most common areas of imbalance, strain, and tightness in an athlete’s body. Each chapter explains common muscular dysfunctions, self-tests to identify the restrictions in your flexibility and muscular strength, and how to “reset” these muscles using a sequence of yoga poses and mindful movements. While specifically written for athletes to improve performance and reduce injury, this book may also be helpful for all yogis to create a more balanced physical yoga practice.
Yoga Sequencing Deck by Mark Stephens
This is a thorough and detailed set of 100 cards for planning and designing yoga class sequences. Each yoga flash card has a color photo of the posture on the front with its English and Sanskrit name below. The backside contains detailed lists of specific anatomical muscles that are are used in the pose as well as yoga poses to support the pose, lead up to the pose and counter the effects of the pose. The cards are color coded into groups of yoga poses: Standing, Core, Arm Support, Backbends, Seated Twists, Forward Bends & Hip Openers, Inversions, and savasana. The deck is designed for yoga teachers and experienced students and includes a small booklet that contains the primary concepts behind sequencing yoga poses.
The Art and Business of Teaching Yoga by Amy Ippoliti and Taro Smith
Just about every yoga teacher that I’ve known has felt uncomfortable marketing their yoga classes. I think a large part of this discomfort is not knowing how to skillfully choose effective tools that are in alignment with yoga’s ethics and principles. Ippoliti and Smith have created an extremely well written and clearly organized business guide for yoga teachers based on their own experiences as well as surveying other teachers and students. This small book is packed full of ideas on how to build and market a yoga teaching business as well as great tips on how to improve your teaching.
The Path of Modern Yoga by Elliott Goldberg
This lovely book traces the history of modern yoga (1920’s-2000’s) through the biographical stories of yoga students as well as the eleven Indian and Western yogis who spearheaded the popularity of yoga as a primary physical practice. An amazing amount of research and detail is effortlessly conveyed through the use of delightful and insightful storytelling of the lives of these fascinating yoga pioneers.
Namaslay by Candace Moore
While I found the “namaslay” attitude in Moore’s book to be off-putting and unnecessary, I can’t stop admiring this beautiful yoga book. The execution of the size, printing, design, and photographs is absolutely exquisite and even though the content falls short of my standards, I would recommend this book to new yoga students.
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