Yoga Touchstone

Yoga: Critical Alignment is an innovative, illustrated guide to new practices that release the tension held in the body to create a new balanced alignment. In yoga, even seasoned practitioners have the habit of working the body from the surface layers of muscle. The muscles are linked to will power and discipline, and working hard on the mat can create unhealthy strain in the body. Author Gert van Leeuwen teaches his unique sequences of standing postures, inversions, forward bends, backbends, twists, and pranayama to get you to optimal alignment and ease. Each thoughtfully sequenced practice is meticulously illustrated so that you can keep this book at your side while you practice. Core topics include: • The role of the skeleton in movement chains and sequences • How to enhance the body's mobility and deepen body awareness • Cultivating a meditation and pranayama practice • Instructions and refinement: inversions, standing postures, forward bends, backbends, twists, seated postures • Planning lessons for a home practice or a studio environment

Millions of people practice some form of yoga, but they often do so without a clear understanding of its history, traditions, and purposes. This comprehensive bibliography, designed to assist researchers, practitioners, and general readers in navigating the extensive yoga literature, lists and comments upon English-language yoga texts published since 1981. It includes entries for more than 2,400 scholarly as well as popular works, manuals, original Sanskrit source text translations, conference proceedings, doctoral dissertations, and master's theses. Entries are arranged alphabetically by author for easy access, while thorough author, title, and subject indexes will help readers find books of interest.

Enjoy Pure Bliss and True Relaxation with Yoga Nidra Experience peace and deeply restorative rest that heals your body, mind, and spirit. Featuring twenty-four Yoga Nidra scripts written by author Julie Lusk and thirteen of the world's master teachers, this book shows you how to use yogic sleep to revitalize your inner reservoir of intuitive understanding and unconditional joy. As a practice done lying down, Yoga Nidra helps you ease anxiety, boost immunity, reduce chronic pain, improve heart health, enhance memory and concentration, and much more. This empowering book offers meditations for everyone, and they're all backed by contemporary science. With guidance from Kamini Desai, PhD, Swami Satchidananda, Swami Shankardev Saraswati, MD, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, PhD, and other experts, you'll learn to clear your mind, settle your emotions, and reach a unique state of calm, focused awareness.

This book is the first study to engage directly with the transformations and adaptations of yoga in the modern world. It addresses the dialectic and ideological exchange between yoga's ancient precursors and modern praxis, and the development and consolidation of yoga in global settings.

A history of yoga’s transformation from sacred discipline to exercise program to embodied spiritual practice • Identifies the origin of exercise yoga as India’s response to the mania for exercise sweeping the West in the early 20th century • Examines yoga’s transformations through the lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures, including Sri Yogendra, K. V. Iyer, Louise Morgan, Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, Indra Devi, and B. K. S. Iyengar • Draws on more than 10 years of research from rare primary sources and includes 99 illustrations In The Path of Modern Yoga, Elliott Goldberg shows how yoga was transformed from a sacred practice into a health and fitness regime for middle-class Indians in the early 20th century and then gradually transformed over the course of the 20th century into an embodied spiritual practice--a yoga for our times. Drawing on more than 10 years of research from rare primary sources as well as recent scholarship, Goldberg tells the sweeping story of modern yoga through the remarkable lives and accomplishments of 11 key figures: six Indian yogis (Sri Yogendra, Swami Kuvalayananda, S. Sundaram, T. Krishnamacharya, Swami Sivananda, and B. K. S. Iyengar), an Indian bodybuilder (K. V. Iyer), a rajah (Bhavanarao Pant Pratinidhi), an American-born journalist (Louise Morgan), an Indian diplomat (Apa Pant), and a Russian-born yogi trained in India (Indra Devi). The author places their achievements within the context of such Western trends as the physical culture movement, the commodification of exercise, militant nationalism, jazz age popular entertainment, the quest for youth and beauty, and 19th-century New Age religion. In chronicling how the transformation of yoga from sacred discipline to exercise program allowed for the creation of an embodied spiritual practice, Goldberg presents an original, authoritative, provocative, and illuminating interpretation of the history of modern yoga.

The long-awaited, complete guide to the popular, vigorous American method of yoga that is deeply rooted in ancient wisdom and scriptures “In this day and age of health and fitness trends, it is assuring to know that Sharon and David encourage their students to draw inspiration from the classical texts of Yoga and timeless scriptural sources. ”—Sri Swami Satchidananda Creators of the extremely popular Jivamukti Yoga method and cofounders of the New York City studios where it is taught, Sharon Gannon and David Life present their unique style of yoga for the first time in book form. As they explain their intensely physical and spiritual system of flowing postures, they provide inspiring expert instruction to guide you in your practice. Unlike many books about yoga, Jivamukti Yoga focuses not only on the physical postures but also on how they evolved—the origins of the practices in yoga’s ancient sacred texts and five-thousand-year-old traditions—the psychotherapeutic benefits that accrue with a steady practice, and the spiritual power that is set free when energy flows throughout the mind and body. Jivamukti Yoga, which means “soul liberation,” guides your body and soul into spiritual freedom, physical strength, peace of mind, better health, and Self-realization–the ultimate goal of any practice. Gannon and Life help you understand each of the practices that comprise the yoga path to enlightenment: AHIMSA–The Way of Compassion: choosing nonviolence, respecting all life, practicing vegetarianism, living free of prejudice ASANA–The Way of Connection to the Earth: postures and sequences, breathing, transforming energy, understanding the bandhas KARMA–The Way of Action: creating good karma, giving thanks NADAM–The Way of Sacred Music: appreciating the sacred sounds of yoga MEDITATION–The Way of the Witness: how to sit still and move inward BHAKTI–The Way of Devotion to God: living with love, grace, and peace Whatever yoga you practice, Jivamukti Yoga will help you to strengthen and deepen that practice and lead you onto a path of spiritual clarity and self-discovery. “If there is only one book you read about the practice of Yoga, this should be the one. . . . This book is for anyone who wishes to find transformation through Yoga. I’m grateful for their work and teaching.”—Stephan Rechtschaffen, MD, Co-founder & CEO, Omega Institute

"Adapts the practice of yoga by focusing on the poses that offer the greatest benefits to runners. The poses and sequences in this book are intended to enhance strength, stability, and mobility in order to reduce incidents of running injury and add longevity to your sport as you become a healthier and stronger runner"--