Total Yoga for You: A Step-By-Step Guide to Yoga at Home for Everybody

By Tara Fraser

Book Overview

"An ideal book for beginners and a spur to more experienced students" Yoga Magazine

This is a complete, illustrated practical guide that takes a traditional, holistic approach combining yoga postures with a healthy lifestyle, especially with regards to diet and meditation. It shows how these teachings are as appropriate today as they were in the past - helping you to cope with stresses and strains of modern life.

Develop your own personalised yoga practice following the detailed descriptions of how to work safely and progressively with the postures and breathing exercises of hatha yoga. The author explains the essentials in plain, simple language and uses over 200 step-by-step colour photographs to take you through the essential asanas (postures) and sequences. Special 'box outs' suggest how beginners can adapt the classic postures to make them easier to perform - while more experienced students are shown how to progress towards more challenging asanas as they build up their skills.

The practical core of the book is complemented by coverage of yoga's traditional physiological, philosophical and spiritual context, and its roots in ancient India. The idea that the body has its own energy pathways and centres in the form of nadis and chakras is explored in a way that is clear and inspiring to Western readers.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1844834093
• ISBN13: 9781844834099
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Watkins Publishing
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 7.6" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Great practical guide

This small book is worth its weight in gold for those who are interested in learning and understanding the practice of yoga. As a certified yoga instructor and an Educational Psychologist (PhD), I use this book exclusively with my clients who are new to the practice. The book is well written, informative, and includes many useful photographs to guide the beginning student toward a productive home practice. One of the most useful aspects of the book is the sequencing of poses for students that may lack the knowledge to create a series of movements at home. In addition, the author illustrates many basic yoga poses in detail, providing proper alignment and positioning for various levels of ability. I recommend this book highly.

A Complete guide

No other Yoga book has impressed so such with completeness of information and clarity. A great book to self-start your journey to fitness and well-being.

For those who want to be serious yoga practitioners

As a certified yoga instructor, this has helped me clarify many confusions about how poses should be done. Total yoga is a great resource and picture book that teaches yoga in step by step clarity. It has helped me do some asanas that I couldn't figure out even with a instructor beside me.

Excellent

This is a very well illustrated introductory guide to yoga mainly for beginners. The poses and sequences are clearly explained and variations are provided for different levels of ability. A minor criticism is that the author asserts that the poses will stimulate internal organs such as the thyroid or spleen. To do what exactly? This is silly and detracts from the work. She should edit those comments out on any future edition. Otherwise this is highly recommended.

A Good Yoga Book for Home Practice

This is my one of my favorite yoga books... it explains about lines of energy, chakras, the different types of yoga and Hatha Yoga, and of course, is full of some basic poses. It also includes some sequences for different occasions, included the classic Sun Salute. The nice thing about this book is that it also has clearly explained breathing exersizes, and what the do. It also has a nice intro to meditation, and includes severla different meditatoin techniques to introduce you to this idea. Of course, if you don't take classes, you SHOULD start taking them, and even if you do, this book will help you with your own at home rutine. Overall, a good little book.