JillFlorio

I am not clear who the audience for this book is intended to be. This is not an instructional book on asanas, not a memoir, nor a how-to for enlightenment.

My sense is this text is intended to gently introduce deeper yogic philosophies - the Eight Limbs, the idea of mindfulness, the establishment of your own practice. In this sense, the book succeeds.

Starting off each chapter with Charlotte Bell’s personal experiences provides an accessible access point for jumping into, say, the Fourth Limb of Pranayama. Sutras are quoted, which Bell supports with her own insights. She breaks down complex concepts in a supportive, understandable manner.

Each chapter then closes with a small series of reflective questions for the reader’s personal growth.

The book strikes me, most usefully, as a philosophy course textbook for beginning yoga students.

It’s not a relaxing bedside read or a gripping story. It’s the kind of book you want to read one chapter from after each yoga class, with a notebook to journal your reflective responses to questions asked.

I could readily see highlighting nuggets of wisdom to help better learn/understand the Eightfold Path, using the text as a reference book. I might pull out a chapter later, and then meditate on that theme in Savasana.

One could also possibly use this as focus for a book club, where readers discuss their own insights and anecdotes, relating them to Bell’s experience.

Basically, although I at first thought this was to be a sit-down story, memoir-type book, I quickly realized this a workbook in disguise. Not that there is anything wrong with that! It’s just not what I was expecting from reading the Amazon.com blurb.

Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice

This is a screwball comedy about a family (mom, dad, son, grandma and grandpa) all busy “seeking” something - the thing is, none of them are quite sure what it is.

Nina, the protagonist, owns a posh yoga studio in New Jersey. She’s the perfect enlightened yoga instructor (at least to all appearances) until a feng shui consultant wanders in to tell Nina her studio has bad energy - setting off a ripple effect of comedi-tragic events.

As Nina becomes increasingly freaked out by her feng shui worries, her husband loses his job, her normally good son acts out in school and her blustering parents decide to visit. All of this is framed by the ominous arrival of Hurricane Ida, an ideal metaphor for this family’s internal chaos and desperation.

You can taste the sense of squeaky-clean New Jersey suburbia - and understand the price people pay to maintain such outward “perfection.” Like many families, Nina’s picture perfect projection isn’t built on solid ground.

If you grew up in a family of strong women on the East Coast, there are a lot of recognizable elements here: Nina’s own controlling thoughtlessness; Nina’s old school, matriarchal overbearing mother; a mellow, slightly cowed, slightly incompetent set of “good provider” husbands; and the quiet son who decides to rebel against the Stepford-perfect ways of his politically-correct, New Age mom by secretly becoming an orthodox Jew.

Each character is cunningly drawn and entirely realistic, even if the series of events is not. There are no heroes, or even villains here (well, except the actually very scary Homeland Security officer).

The resolution offers no nicely packaged answers. Everyone is still a bit messed up. Perhaps they’ve have drawn back from the edge of desperation and grown slightly in self-knowledge.

Or maybe not. At the very end, Nina reveals she’s latched onto her next big thing…

It’s a short book and a quick read. While the plot isn’t particularly compelling, I found it hard to put the novel down. If anything, this story could have been an episode of Desperate Housewives…

Fear and Yoga in New Jersey

This book strikes me as a labor of love - immense and incredible detail pours forth on every fully illustrated page.

Serious yoga practitioners will glean useful insights on joint actions, breathing, and the precise inner workings of their bodies, in poses from savasana to scorpion. Excellent color drawings show where your intestines curl up to in poses like shoulderstand (they take up a lot more room in the torso than we realize), what parts of the body hold up weight in inverted poses, and even what our illustrated musculature looks like from underneath, in, for example, turtle pose (the publishers photographed yogis underneath suspended glass slabs). There is a lot of neat stuff here.

• The “Joint Action,” “Working” and “Lengthening” paragraphs detail what parts of the body are under stress or responding to gravity. The arms, legs and spine are given extra attention.

• “Obstacles and Notes” includes where one might feel restrictions, try variations or deal with bodily congestion.

• “Breathing” offers tips on how the breath might be restricted and how to align each pose to more comfortably/fully breathe.

OVERALL RECOMMENDATION -

Beginners won’t really know what to make of this book. Besides the “oh, cool!” factor, it’s difficult to figure out what beginners could do with this information. It’s not a pose book per se. It’s not causal reading. It’s a serious texbook for serious yogis.

While the top of each page provides both Sanskrit and English pose names, the text refers to the Sanskrit, forcing yoga beginners to fumble around between pages to catch what the references are.

Proper names of muscles, bones and tendons are used: if reading about adductors, flexors, rotators, erector spinae, multifidi and rhomboids that “work eccentrically” are confusing, this book might not be altogether helpful.

That said, this book is a must-have for the libraries of yoga instructors and yoga therapists. Doctors and medical professionals endorsing yoga for health/fitness will likely enjoy this reference tool.

Intermediate to advanced practitioners with a working knowledge of anatomy and Sanskrit names should find exploring Yoga Anatomy an - ahem - *illuminating* experience.

Yoga Anatomy

This 40 minute DVD yoga class is a blast to play along to, whether you are with your family members or not. The energy is playful, fun and infectious.

The DVD takes place on a sunny rectangular stage right in front of the crashing waves of Maui. The stage has enough room for their five yoga mats and is surrounded with lush tropical foliage. There is soft new age music and you can hear the sounds of the waves and birds during the presentation.

This practice starts with sun salutes, moves into standing poses, handstands, backbends, crow/crane and a variety of sitting stretches using straps. A savasana and sitting meditation complete the routine.

Rodney Yee, with his wife and three children, take turns demonstrating poses and leading sun salute sequences. They are a very cute family and giggle together a lot.

I can see where children from young ages to preteens can associate themselves with the kids on-screen as “yoga teachers.” Kids at home would probably enjoy leading their own families in sequences - what a great confidence builder! Altogether, doing yoga as a family in this way should create fantastic bonding time as well as promoting strength and flexibility from a young age.

Couples without children can also enjoy this DVD. Lots of poses are shown using a partner to assist into arm balances, backbends and inversions. I showed the handstand section to my husband to help him get a feel for how to help me, and we did the relaxing coupled backbend together as well.

My main caveat is a big one - this is no DVD for beginners. Novices will be hopelessly lost during the fast-moving sun salutations. There’s no instruction on basics like downward dog, upward dog and side plank pose. The sun salutes include a lot of jump backs and tougher transitions that Rodney and his flexible family take for granted.

Advanced beginners will be caught short by the inclusion of intermediate poses like handstand, upward cow and crow/crane.

Nowhere on the DVD package does it mention that this might not be appropriate for beginners. This oversight might get some people hurt!

For beginners who buy this program I recommend they go right to the standing poses, which have actual pose instruction and take things slowly. Skip the fast-moving sun salutes sequence. Try not to worry about getting up into handstand unless your kids are already athletic.

As the DVD does not have a section menu (just hit PLAY and off it goes), you’d have to manually fast-forward to the parts you want to use.

I wouldn’t blame Rodney for the inappropriate marketing - this is a delightful practice and I appreciate that there’s a family routine out there that isn’t all just easy beginner’s work. So there is certainly room in the market for a disc like this - for families already familiar with yoga, who want to get in some playful family time and help each other with challenging poses.

Ultimately, I found this DVD really quite enjoyable and will be adding it to my rotation as a short, “fun” choice.

Rodney Yee - Yoga Journal’s Family Yoga

I started up the DVD to watch first, just to see what I was getting into with an intermediate level of Rodney Yee. I was pleased to see that none of the poses are unexpected or out of reach for intermediates - we should be able to do half moons, upward bows, bridges and shoulderstands, and be working on our headstands, elbowstands and handstands.

Then I tried it out for myself:

• Vinyasa

This first section starts with sun salutes and then keeps up a very steady vinyasa clip, with jump backs from standing forward bend into plank and some harder variations on the basic yoga poses. Upward dog is featured a lot. There are some tough transitions like half moon pose to triangle. This section is both exhausting and invigorating. Even Rodney looks tired at the end - he’s shaking by warrior 3 and the vein on his glistening forehead is throbbing. If he is sweating and shaking, I feel okay about taking child’s pose when I need it.

This is the longest section on the program and it’s a real kick in the pants that it’s the first one.

• Inversions

Handstand, elbow stand, headstand - all against a wall, in what looks like the outdoor lobby of a Maui resort hotel. Rodney offers some useful preps to the poses and makes coming out of them look easy. Hand, head and elbow stands are the only inversions offered - no serious strength-related arm balances, no crows, no scorpions.

This is the shortest segment on the DVD, and I think the most fun. His lead-in to elbow stand uses a brick and a strap, and the headstand uses a brick.

• Integration

This is focused pose work - full supported bridge (leg up), camel, upward bow. Various sitting stretches and then plow to shoulderstand. Followed by some nice twisty stretches and restorative work.

This ends with a seated meditation to a gorgeous Hawaiian sunset.

The DVD plays one hour and five minutes, and it’s really all about the yoga. Rodney’s introduction is a few minutes and then he wastes no time hopping (literally) into the sections. The Maui setting is nice - Rodney does his work directly on the green grass of a garden setting overlooking an ocean cliff.

My advice to beginning intermediates is to start with the Integration section, then do Inversions, and lastly do the “power” section that leads off the DVD. If you enjoy yoga for the sweat, then by all means perform your practice in the order the DVD suggests.

Rodney Yee Intermediate Yoga

This enjoyable yogic chick-lit novel has three parts - the Pre-India, India and Post-India sections. The best part, and the bulk of the story, lies in protagonist’s India travels…in all their poverty-stricken, rotten-corpse-floating-in-the-Ganges glory.

Amanda, a part-time yoga instructor/part time guidebook author, is sent by her dragon-lady publisher to India in search of enlightenment. She ultimately finds the problem with packaging enlightenment into a “Dummies” book is that spiritual paths don’t run on deadlines.

Amanda jumps both feet first into India, fortunately befriended by an ex-pat, barefoot Sadhu (renunciate spiritual seeker). They travel across the Sub-Continent together, sleeping under mosquito netting on questionable mattresses, poling up the filthy Ganges and watching cows eat garbage in the streets. There’s an odd mix of the holy and the grotesque. The author’s voice seems genuine; she transports us with her to an honest view of India.

Amanda’s comic-desperate journey takes her from one promising enlightenment guru to the next. Each spiritual master takes a different tack on “The TRUTH”…hard core yoga, loss of individuality (who is the *you* who is asking about your truth?), strict ashram work schedules (her job is shoveling cow dung) and even ashrams with no leader (where the main activity, at least for Amanda, is sleeping in). Amanda finally backpacks in to an ascetic in a mountain cave who might actually possess the truth…and is suddenly, painfully sent home.

I found the India segment fascinating - I could have traveled with Amanda and Devi Das stumbling for enlightenment for years. Following her back to the states was a lot less fun.

The denouement was a bit of a let-down after all the colorful traveling and exotic misadventures. Back home, I sensed Amanda missed the sacred chaos and strange purity of her quest. I missed it too.

Amanda DID find what she was looking for, in a sense, and so did her publisher. And it’s really all we can hope for ourselves.

Overall, this was a fun read with some, ahem - enlightening moments, and a sort of “lite” version of the bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Recommended for chick lit fanciers who don’t mind a little meat in their beach reading.

Enlightenment for Idiots: A Novel

This 63 page book of stretches is nicely done for what it is. You get 200 big color photos of a man and a woman showing simple stretches to carry you through your day.

The slim volume is divided into sections to help relieve many tension-based and stress-related ailments through holding mostly gentle poses.

Chapters are:

Introduction
Preparation
Warm ups
Flexibility
Headache/tension
Posture enhancers
Tension/backache
Breathing/blood flow
Tired and aching legs
Tension and poor circulation
Revitalizing passive stretches
Instant fatigue revitalizers
Anxiety and tension
Abdominal tension
Office tension/stiff muscles
Wake up stretches
Traveler’s stretches
Hip/pelvic tension
Winding down stretches
Index

It’s unusual that a book advised for all levels of flexibility would show harder poses like plow, shoulder stand, and the beginning part of upward bow/wheel. To be fair, the author does provide lots of cautionary notes about how you should stop if you perceive any discomfort or have certain physical ailments.

Most of the stretches in the book are extremely gentle, however, including easy pose work like cat/cow, sideways bends, squats, cobra, simple twist, triangle and down dog.

The winding-down section takes but a few moments and I found the suggestions certainly helped me get the kinks out to relax in bed. The hip and pelvic tension pages are great for easing menstrual cramps. I like how the traveler’s stretches are all things one can do in public and still look normal: sideways bends, hamstrings stretch, thigh stretch, forward/backward bend and backwards bends.

The best section are the nine stretches you can do seated in an office chair. I just did them again right now! They take two minutes to complete and do give me a refreshing break while I sit here writing. There is nothing here that says “alert - this person is doing yoga!” - so you can do all these stretches right in front of co-workers without feeling self-conscious.

This book won’t satisfy actual yoga practitioners. You are not actually learning yoga with this small book and anyone beyond the realm of novice won’t see anything new. The beauty here is that complete non-yogis can enjoy these stretches and get some nice yoga benefits.

The book would make a good gift for just about anyone with even a tiny bit of flexibility. My main caveat is that non-yogis should be warned not to attempt poses like plow and shoulder stand right off the bat. It makes it hard to decide who the author is catering to when they suggest inversions to newbies!

Overall, recommended to newbies who want learn mostly simples stretches, and also for yogis wanting a quick reference for the best stretches to deal with headaches, PMS, fatigue and anxiety. These are real quick fixes! And thus, the book does belong on my home “health and wellness” bookcase.

Easy Yoga Stretches

I picked up this DVD at Target for 15 bucks and I really like it. All my other Yoga DVDs feature women as instructors, and I was nervous that a man instructor would focus too much on strength moves. I don’t know how that applies to Rodney’s other DVDs, but in this one he only does easy beginner poses.

The key is, he does each pose in a set of three. You do the moves slowly, which took me awhile to actually DO, as I am used to each pose at the speed I have been already doing them.

I did not feel much of a ‘burn’, but i did feel a definite heat in my core during the hour-long workout. I honestly felt GREAT - my blood was nice and warm and I felt very strong. So maybe this is the kind of burn that is referred to, instead of the typical aerobics burn of using a muscle group until fatigue. This DVD is not like that at all, even though it’s what I was expecting.

Some of his sequences were very fluid and creative - I liked his warrior vinyasa, for example. And some of his forward bends really encouraged my body to loosen to a far greater extent than I had done previously. I found the repetition of each pose (the three times) to be boring at first. Then I noted that each time I repeated the pose I was able to go significantly further into the stretch.

I did not find that much strength was needed in the hour, but then, I like downdogs and planks. There are also some updogs halfway through that got exhilarating/tiring, but one can always replace them with cobras if needed.

Rodney has a very nice yoga instructional voice. Soothing. He does not talk too much - the instruction is just enough, as long as you know what each pose is named (he uses the English terms). Rodney is also enjoyable to look at.

The setting is quite nice - set in a yoga studio - some kind of very cool Zen one. There are rice screens behind him; he is on a bamboo floor platform, and the platform is set above a Zen rock garden. The beige sand is raked around the rocks like one would expect. Very peaceful to look at, with some Zen-like, low music in the background that does not distract.

I found the DVD a bit sparse in options. No matrix or sections to choose from - you just start the program and an hour later you are done. So if you don’t have that much time, you’d have to do only a part of this DVD from the beginning, or fast forward to another section and go from there.

There is an intro by Rodney that i still need to watch. There is a choice of playing the hour with less instruction - ie, just voice prompts. The full-on instructional option is not for novices, however. Rodney assumes you have some experience and can follow along by going into downdog, boat, warrior one and two, etc, without having to be told anything about them. He provides no postural tips or even breathing assistance. I think at one point he reminds us to breathe and relax our faces, and that’s all we get. I would have liked more direction about when to breathe in and out, myself.

So this DVD would be good for experienced beginners and for intermediates looking for an easy burn. Anyone expecting any arm balances, pigeons or wheel poses won’t find them here. I assume for that we’d have to buy his Intermediate Yoga DVD. I actually probably will at some point!

Rodney Yee: Yoga Burn

I am very happy with my yoga brick. The price was right at under 9 dollars…and I have to admit I liked the deep purple color, as it matches my most-used yoga mat and my strap. Truthfully, having matching yoga props isn’t highly important, but it still brings me happiness to associate that certain deep purple color with my yoga practice. And with that extra little pleasure I enjoy and DO my practice more often. Doing yoga is what counts.

My brick arrived in a clear plastic sleeve that I removed prior to using.

I picked a yoga DVD that I hoped would use a brick. Not only was I pleased to use this lightweight, silky foam brick as a “brick” - but I also used the brick in place of a bolster and pillow as needed. It’s soft enough around the edges to be useful in place of those other props. it worked very nicely in the lying down heart openers.

The brick has several dimensions, from a short height, mid height and tall height. It can be used in two directions as well - the short or long dimensions. I appreciate that there are so many ways to use one tool.

Being so light in weight, the brick is a bit wobbly in the high position poses (on it’s tallest axis), but I found I can get past this by loosening my hips (like Elvis) and going with the wobble. I prefer the lightness of this than a wooden brick that would be harder on my body parts and heavier to maneuver.

Overall, I recommend this yoga prop for anyone thinking of buying a brick/block to deepen their practice. It’s multi-use, has soft edges that do not dig into the body, and has a silky hand feel.

Gaiam Yoga Brick

I ordered Shiva Rea Creative Core Abs DVD from the library interloan system and it came in today! Yay! So here is the review.

Takes place in White Sands National Monument with a drummer on a rock and cool music. There is also a ‘just music’ option that is nice for just moving to or doing one’s own yoga moves.

There are three workouts that can be done on their own or all rolled together. Done together it’s a real nice burn for the torso/core in 35 minutes.

In separate sections here are the parts -

Water Core (10 min) - the ‘easy’ part. A good warm-up but still an excellent core burn. Creative, fun.

Spontaneous Core (8 min) - very tiring - this is really the hardest part, as there is no rest once you get both your head and the hips/legs in the air. The free form part is cool if you like Shiva’s style.

Fire Core (17 mins) - Shiva moves fast in this, as she does in this whole DVD. You pretty much have to accept that it’s okay to not be able to follow along at first, and not having a ton of structure until you’ve seen this a few times. This particular section is harder than part one and easier than part two.

I was some reviews on Amazon on this DVD and a lot of people find the last part, the Fire Core, the hardest. The Fire Core has a lot of regular planks, followed by one-legged planks and then this section where you kind of “run in place” while doing planks. Hard to describe but pretty nifty: I felt strong doing that. There are also some flowy warrior poses where you ‘draw an arrow on a bow’ - also pretty neat - and then whip your arms around while holding warrior 2. Made me feel like Artemis.

There is no Savasana in this DVD. I thought that was a bit odd, but I guess this is to be a short, contained core workout and not strictly yoga? Besides a few planks and cobras there are few typical, recognizable poses.

This DVD is experienced beginner to intermediate and I DO NOT think any yoga novice should expect to be able to follow along very closely. Shiva moves quite fast and does not explain what she’s doing as she goes.

This is not a boring ab routine. What’s best, in my view, is the ‘creative’ part. There are no crunches, just some really interesting freeform-yet-intense pulsing moves.

Definitely gets your sheen going! I did feel a fire in my belly afterwards, chilling out on the couch with the TV. The inner heat lasted about 20 minutes.

Well recommended for a quick, slightly intense core experience that Shiva stamps with her typically enjoyable creative mark.

Shiva Rea - Creative Core Abs