Posts Tagged ‘reviews’
yoga bitch by suzanne morrison (review)
Shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Suzanne Morrison walked into her first yoga class in Seattle, looking for comfort in the midst of collective trauma and a way to overcome her fear of death. Yoga Bitch: One Woman’s Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment is the hilarious and honest story of her search for inner calm, love and transformation.
After her initial introduction, she becomes enchanted by a seemingly perfect yoga teacher named Indra, and soon signs up for a two-month teacher training in Bali with Indra and her partner, Lou. The couple becomes for 25-year-old Suzanne an example of true, adult love between two people on the spiritual path. She also encounters a range of characters (who embody the whole spectrum of yoga stereotypes), drinks her own pee and has a kundalini awakening.
Suzanne does a great job of writing about yoga in a way that is real, gritty and funny. The book is sprinkled with sharp one-liners and wry observations of the people around her. “Wellness is very big among my yogamates. If Wellness were a person, it would be Michael Jackson circa 1984 and my yogamates would be screaming, crying fans, jumping up and down just to be so near to it. Kind of the way I would act around a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes right about now.” Continue Reading
The ideal spine (image via Kevin Khalili)
Many yoga practitioners and teachers believe that yoga is good for us on all levels: spiritually, emotionally and physically. However, lately there is increasing evidence that yoga can be harmful as well as healing. Recent articles in Time Magazine (“When Yoga Hurts,” from 2007) and The Globe & Mail (“Trouble on the Om Front,” from 2009) are exploring the reasons behind statistics indicating an increase in yoga-related injuries. Between 2004 and 2007, approximately 13,000 people were treated for yoga-related injuries, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Kevin Khalili, a chiropractor based in California, has added another voice to this growing (and essential) conversation, with his self-published book, X-Posed: The Painful Truth Behind Yoga & Pilates. Here, he claims that common motions and positions in daily life – which are actually stressful and unbalanced – are duplicated during certain yoga exercises. He singles out improper lying down, sitting and bending/lifting from the waist as the most dangerous motions.
In his chiro practice, Kevin noticed that yoga (and Pilates, but I’m only focusing on the yoga here) are the source of many needless, painful injuries, and he was compelled to research and study how this could be prevented. The information in X-Posed is supported by plenty of studies and academic reports (listed in a six-page bibliography at the end of the book), as well as observations in his office. According to his research, the most dangerous classes of poses are seated, forward bends and inversions. He includes a chapter on each class, detailing the aspects of the poses that are hazardous for most body types, and including alternatives. A chapter called “Lost Treasures” lists the “hidden gems” that are beneficial for most bodies.
I find it interesting that Kevin notes that North Americans have approached practicing yoga in a “dangerously uncritical way,” and that the positive effects of yoga (including the “sense of elation” that many of us feel after practice) have clouded our judgement. As well, yoga is marketed as something that is innocuous and beneficial, leading us to believe that it’s all good. “Motion is motion,” he writes, “and just because we are performing a wrong motion in a tranquil healing environment, it doesn’t make it a right motion for your body.”
Yet, X-Posed is not an attack on yoga, and Kevin repeatedly says that he is concerned about the safety and health of practitioners. The tone of the book is reasonable and balanced, and the information is well-researched. Since the book was self-published, the writing and editing isn’t as rigorous as the research, but the information is there and the intention is clear.
It takes a lot of courage to speak out consciously *against* yoga. Luckily, Kevin can explain his reasons for writing the book better than I can. He graciously agreed to answer some questions for me.
What is your intention with this book?
My intention is to help establish safer standards of practice for yoga via valid scientific principles. In a nutshell: reduce risks and boost benefits of yoga practice. Continue Reading
As I write this, riots are spreading across England, Syrian forces are cracking down on protesters, Somalian children are dying from famine-related diseases, global financial markets are in turmoil and radiation continues to quietly leak from Fukushima nuclear power reactors.
It sounds apocalyptic, but honestly, today the world is in no better or worse a state than it was yesterday or will be tomorrow. Yet, this reality is on my mind as I read Michael Stone’s latest book, Awake in the World: Teachings from Yoga and Buddhism for Living an Engaged Life (Shambala Publications, 2011). The book is a collection of essays adapted from talks given between 2004 and 2010, from Northern Ontario to Greece to Los Angeles. The topics cover activism, ecology, money, community awakening, the mind and meditation.
As he states in his introduction, Michael’s hope is that the essays in the book will “encourage you to bring your practice to a deeper level by placing it at the centre of your life rather than the outskirts of your lifestyle.” His intention is to inspire the reader to integrate the formal path with daily activities of life, so that “your life and your Yoga practice are seamless continuities of one another.”
This core intention is embedded in every essay. There are repeated calls for engaging practice and life, balancing inner transformation with outer transformation, and initiating a collective experiment in awakening. “We all have to figure out how to bring our commitment to practice into everyday life in a way that serves,” Michael writes in ‘Diversity.’ “This is the heart of intimate practice.” Continue Reading
Carried By A Promise is the story of Swami Radhananda, the president and spiritual director of Yasodhara Ashram, and her relationship with her teacher, Swami Sivananda Radha. Yasodhara Ashram is a thriving spiritual community in Southeastern British Columbia which was founded by Swami Radha, one of the first Western women to be initiated into sanyas.
The story follows Swami Radhananda’s life from her first meeting with Swami Radha in 1977 until her teacher’s death in 1995. While reading this humble and clear memoir, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own journey and my spiritual life. Like Swami Radhananda – or Mary-Ann MacDougall, as she was known at the time of her meeting – I am in my mid-30s. Even though I don’t have a husband and children, or a career for that matter, I relate to her dissatisfaction, her desire for more out of life, her questioning.
Also, full disclosure, I have studied yoga with Swami Radhananda and I lived at Yasodhara Ashram for two years. I have intimate experience with the teachings and practices that she talks about in the book. But I also feel that this book has much to offer anybody who is on the path of yoga, anyone who has the courage to practice, investigate themselves and apply what they’ve learned in their real lives.
Continue Reading
In the winter, my tendency is to slow down and go inwards. The chilly Montréal air and long nights make me feel like spending a lot of time indoors ~ and correspondingly, my yoga practice has become slower and more restorative. I hold the postures, breathe, and allow whatever thoughts to arise.
The Inner Life of Asanas, a collection of columns by Swami Lalitananda originally published in ascent magazine*, is the perfect guide for this kind of internal process. The short essays in this book are based on the practice of Hidden Language Hatha Yoga, a reflective approach designed to illuminate the physical, psychological and mystical dimensions of key yoga asanas.
The book is made up of 26 postures, which have been organized into 5 thematic chapters: Awareness, Choice, Action, Devotion and Union. Each posture is structured with a short reflection/anecdote related to a greater theme, followed by a practice – a description of how to do the form of the pose (very basic and applicable to all systems of Hatha Yoga), keyword prompts and questions.
For example, the section on dhanurasana (bow pose) features an anecdote by Swami Lalitananda about service and putting ideals into action, relating the pose itself to the image of a bow. “I think about the bow and how it is created from a strong but flexible piece of wood, tempered and shaped to serve its purpose.”
She then gives us questions such as “What is your purpose? Can you find the place of balance where you exert effort and let go at the same time?” The practice itself is very loose and fluid, with no directions for timing or sequencing. The only expectation is that practitioners are working with a pen and paper, to capture their responses to the postures and the questions. Continue Reading
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