The Yoga Bible

Getting into yoga for health as I get older. Got this title after considering several others, and zero regrets. It seems arranged in a logical manner. The images and descriptions are clear and easy to follow. And I have to say that the work is paying off with attention to muscles and stretches that I have never really been aware of. This is a great resource even for casual yoga practitioners. I have my routines tabbed out but sometimes I open a random page and read about new positions. One thing I appreciate is that for the advanced positions, they always refer back to the more foundational poses so you can back up and go into the harder stuff more naturally. Not a replacement for a good yoga instructor! But an excellent resource that will be on my shelf for many years. Read more

I'm really enjoying this book. Although there might be too much information for a novice yoga student, the book will be very helpful to an advanced beginner student who is looking to augment their home practice. There are overviews of different types of yoga, pranayama, and meditation which are concise but informative. The pose guide is by far the star of this book! Each pose is disected. You are given written instruction and pictoral guidance to get into and out of poses. Instructions are also included for deepening as well as lessening poses, with lead up poses to prepare yourself for more difficult poses. My favorite part of the book so far is a sun salutation sequence starting in Hero's Pose. My second favorite parts of the book are the talented male models. If you've read any yoga magazines or books, you know that male models are often few and far between! Read more

I had experimented with yoga many years ago, when I was laboring under the misimpression that it would help me develop a different type of physique. I had multiple books, including one by Rodney Yee, which I cheerfully donated once I realized it wasn't going to do anything of the sort. But always I remembered it helped me feel calmer. So last year, when my stress level reached a level than can only be described as hellacious because of a number of things going on in my personal life, and I started feeling a bit more taming of the shrew crazy than I wanted to, I bought this book, hoping that if I could work a few minutes of yoga after my strength training routines it would help me defuse at least some of the stress. What I can say is I thought this book was very well done, much better than any of the books I had previously read or owned. The descriptions and the photographic walk throughs are excellent. However, I think that this book really, really could benefit from being spiral bound. It is smaller, and thicker, and I was continually having to prop it open with free weights, etc. so that I could look at the pictures while I was working on some of the poses. That made it a bit more challenging to use, which is why I took off a star. Ultimately, for me, I just found that lifting weights helped me be calmer overall, so I don't use this as much. One of my son's occupational therapists mentioned that he was always lifting and throwing heavy objects because calming hormones are released from weighted joint compression. I kinda get that now, because between the breathing and the focusing on the mind muscle connection, it pretty much does the same thing for me without the added time at the end of my workouts, and there is a serious premium on my workout time. But there are times when it's still a nice de-stressor, but it's more like a Band-Aid then a cure. If your life is out of balance, yoga is not really capable of fixing that. Read more

For beginners to advanced i love this book & there is something for everyone at any stage in yoga! It works to give you well balanced work out, strengthen your areas of your body you want to improve & overall great meditation, exercise & fun with kiddos & fun for our family... & were not runners or super fit gym people, but this has improved our fun at home, health & overall attitudes! Read more

Love this book... Lots of cool info in a handy size... But a word of caution : while converting the book into a spiral binding makes the book incredible and more accessible a few pages will be negatively impacted in the "Special Uses of Yoga" section of the book (pages 358-365) If this section is important to you proceed with caution. The info is still largely readable, but a words are cut off. I still don't regret rebinding it. Otherwise, this book is a gold mine for cheap! Buy it! Read more