JillFlorio

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 dummies book provides a good grounding in the uses of Facebook. As with all technology books, it’s *already* a tad dated, even though it’s publish-date is this year (2008!). Applications and their popularity ebb and flow - some of the third party applications they’ve mentioned I have not once encountered (ie - Fluff Friends), and some daily requests I get deluged with are not mentioned at all. I can’t turn around, for example, without someone sending me a Lil’ Green Patch, guilting me into sending out more green patches. It’s like a charity virus.

What the book is really for, though, is a novice through beginner’s journey into the social network that is Facebook. The guide begins with how Facebook started, what the term “face book” means (hint - it’s a college thing) and things you can and cannot do on this site.

What can’t you do? Troll. Lie about who you are. Be under 13. Upload illegal content or porn - sorry!

What you can do - post a profile. Add photos, find friends, join groups, make pages for your business, plan events, mess with all kinds of fun apps, join up to five networks, make a newsfeed, sell things and buy advertising.

It’s useful that some mention is made of how many friends to acquire. Do you be-friend everyone who asks? The book suggests quality over quantity - always useful advice in making friends in the meat world too. What exactly Facebooking is, in practice, is laid out: how to find friends, how to “poke” them, and how to manage your ever-growing FB friend lists.

The Adding Photos chapter is pretty comprehensive and moves on into adding videos, writing Wall posts and giving “gifts.”

One thing I found interesting and useful was the section on setting up FB with cell phones, something I had not tried prior to the reading. Of course, young people who’ve grown up with texting won’t find anything new here.

The book has a great section for business people who have not been weaned on social networking - there is a chart advising when to make profiles, pages or groups, what you can do with events, how to set up ads and find/nurture “fans” of your business. This information should be extremely useful for anyone with a small or home business wanting to explore the amazing potential of free marketing/networking with Facebook, which is, honestly, a pretty intuitive site to dive into.

One thing I would have appreciated: some more insights from the authors on how FaceBook impacted their lives and the lives of people in general. FB is a huge world and I am still learning the etiquette - how long is too long to be polite when answering wall posts and messages? Sometimes I don’t get to it for weeks/months. Do I always need to return gifts/fairy dust/karma? How do I get people to stop sending me said gifts/fairy dust/karma? What about people in the real world who want to know about my life and *aren’t”* on Facebook - how do I let them know I don’t have time for updating them and that REALLY if they care, they need to follow me there?

These are the kind of things I would really like to know and would improve the book considerably. In a sense, Facebook for Dummies is mostly a regurgitation of the how-to instructions you can glean yourself from the FB website. But a very nicely laid-out regurgitation.

Facebook For Dummies

When I moved into my new house, the previous tenants left behind several unopened packages of Lysol toilet clings. Since I had not used them previously (the item is over packaged and is not a particularly eco-friendly way to add scent to the bathroom), I was interested in giving my freebies a try.

Once you rip open the the plastic on the (recyclable) cardstock, it’s super intuitive to figure out where to place the scented cling into the toilet. There are also directions on the back of the card to help you determine the most effective placement inside the toilet bowl rim.

I found the scent lasts several weeks. The smell is fresh without being cloying or overwhelming, so that’s a big plus.

My only beef with the product is how much waste is created to add a nice smell. A highly-scented candle does the same thing, lasts longer and looks nice as decor/ambiance in the bathroom. I also use scented oils placed in glass jars with balsam reeds to diffuse scent - those can actually last many months, especially if you turn the reeds every few days - and are refillable.

Since the product is made by Lysol and is marketed as a cleanser/deodorizer, I would imagine that some helpful cleaning power comes from using the cling. Watching the flushing action, I am not convinced extra cleaning *does* occur. But it does *smell* clean!

My recommendation - buy three or four of these to keep in your linen closet: grab and use just before guests come over. The bright fresh scent will convince your guests that you keep things clean and tidy. Just wipe down the toilet and insert the cling!

Lysol Cling Clip-On 2in1 Toilet Bowl Freshener and Cleaner: Spring Waterfall

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

This fitness tool was somewhat disappointing. I was looking forward to using it for a rowing workout but the resistance is very slight. I am 5′4, so maybe this piece of gear is intended for taller people. If that’s the case, perhaps a choice of sizes should be offered, or at least an indication in the product description of who the target audience is.

After messing around with the rowing exerciser, I was able to figure out a few core moves that work, and was able to do some arm extensions as well. Nothing extremely satisfying.

Basically, this isn’t as intuitive a product as one expects. Eventually I gave up trying to wrangle how to use this on my own, and read the included fitness chart suggestions. There are six photographed exercises, all for the abs and core:

1. Rowing (lats)
2. Scooping (abs)
3. Double Leg (obliques)
4. Legs Side to Side (rectus abdominus)
5. Curl Up/Roll Up (rectus abdominus)
6. Boat/Teaser (lower abs)

Each exercise description shows a small black and white photo of each start and end position, with descriptions of how to safely perform the move.

I have the sense this product could be quite nice if the resistance was tight enough to use for actual *rowing*. Some of it’s well-thought out: the handles are a thick black comfortable neoprene. The foot straps are a soft, comfortable black and gray. My feet fit nicely in them (I have a woman’s size 9 foot) and they feel secure. I don’t have the sense the band part will fly back and smack me. However, there is a warning on the chart page about placing your sneakers completely in the stirrups and not just partly. I think this is so your feet don’t fall out, rather than a worry about the resistance band flipping back.

Overall, this product fails as a rowing exerciser, but can be used for a general, non-impact ab workout tool. This is fine if one is prepared for that and not expecting the cheap, portable equivalent of a real rowing machine.

Everlast for Her Pilates Rowing Action Exerciser

This is a great jumprope - the handles rotate easily on a ball-and-hip joint. The handles have a thick black neoprene foam for comfort.

The ‘rope’ part is smooth and weighted. I have the 4 pound version, which is the orange, heaviest one. It’s bright and chipper-looking to make up for the extra kick of a workout you get. You really do get a killer upper body workout from a short amount of jumping activity.

Since it’s so heavy, you can’t really do a long cardio routine here - you have to treat the rope as a “weight” and do sets, gradually adding more revolutions over time.

I also like to fold the rope in half and use it as a resistance band of sorts for stretches.

The downside to this jumprope is the price. 35 dollars is a lot for a grownup version of a child’s toy. However, the key to fitness is actually *using* your gear - you have to like your fitness tools and enjoy using them. This jumprope is nice in the hand, rotates smoothly and is a pleasure to use. I was a little wary of the price but actually glad I bought it.

The rope also comes in red for one pound, blue for two pounds and green for 3 pounds.

4 lb Orange Heavy Power Jump Rope / Weighted Jump Rope

This tabletop fan is powerful enough to use on the floor. It’s loud without being obnoxiously so (although, to be fair, we *like* white noise). We found it helps make our home office bearable in the summer heat.

There are three settings and we tend to just use the strongest one. We’ve used the fan both on the floor and also in the window to cool things off: I prefer the fan blowing air on me right by the foot of my desk, and my husband prefers to use it in the window to circulate cooler air into the room in general. We found that Putting a shirt on the windowsill, under the fan, keeps the vibration/rattling sound to a minimum.

The fan itself arrives fully assembled and has a nice dynamic look. It’s pretty sturdy for the price. There’s a carry handle behind the back of the fan head and the fan housing is adjustable for upwards and down. The head of the fan can be directed straight forward, slightly upward, halfway upward, mostly upward and directly overhead.

Instructions on the fan box and in the manual offer placement suggestions for circulating either cool or warm air as needed. For example, a drawing of the fan shows that by directing the fan straight up to the ceiling, it helps heated air come back down into the room. One needs to use the slower settings to help with the convection process.

The box shows a picture that the fan can also be attached to the wall to save space - something I would not have thought of!

The manual states that the fan can help save on heating and AC bills when used year-round. I’m not sure how that balances out - does running the fan all day, all year balance out not having to turn up the heat or AC units? This probably depends on the efficiency of one’s home heating and/or cooling units. This fan would probably work very well in conjunction with window AC units, fireplaces and wood burning stoves.

Honeywell HT800 Super Turbo High Performance Fan, Black