Your Body, Your Yoga: Learn Alignment Cues That Are Skillful, Safe, and Best Suited To You

by Bernie Clark, Paul Grilley

Yoga is big business today, and teacher training programs are booming. Yoga teachers have a thirst for anatomy training, but all books on yoga anatomy focus solely on the muscles. Your Body, Your Yoga goes beyond any prior yoga anatomy book available. It looks not only at the body’s unique anatomical structures and what this means to everyone’s individual range of motion, but also examines the physiological sources of restrictions to movement. Two volumes are provided in this book: Volume 1 raises a new mantra to be used in every yoga posture: What Stops Me? The answers presented run through a spectrum, beginning with a variety of tensile resistance to three kinds of compressive resistance. Examined is the nature of muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments, joint capsules, bones and our extracellular matrix and their contribution to mobility. The shape of these structures also defines our individual, ultimate range of movement, which means that not every body can do every yoga posture. The reader will discover where his or her limits lie, which dictates which alignment cues will work best, and which ones should be abandoned. Volume 2 will take these principles and apply them to the lower body, examining the hip joint, the knee, ankle and foot, and will present how your unique variations in these joints will show up in your yoga practice.

Your Body, Your Yoga has over 500 illustrations and photographs. For the technically astute, extensive endnotes are provided, along with a exhaustive index. Technical sidebars (labeled “It’s Complicated) allow a non-technical reader to skip the heavier, more detailed discussions and stick to high-level explanations of the concepts. For yoga teachers, sidebars (labeled “To the Teacher”) are offered to help them bring the concepts into their classes. Other interesting discussions that could disrupt the normal narrative flow are also put into sidebars (labeled “It’s Important), which everyone is invited to read.

Genres: Nonfiction, Spirituality, Health, Self Help, Science, Fitness

321 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 12, 2016

Reviews

[Jitka Egressy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. Not only for yogis. This book is for everyone who wants to use body better

[Anneke Rondonuwu · Rating 5 out of 5]

If i could mark 10 stars, i would! This is an anatomy book that all yoga teachers should read

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read for yoga teachers and practitioners alike. We always say every body is different, but this book literally gets down to the bones of it!

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every body is different, and the answer for each practitioner to the question, "what limits me?" depends on the unique structure of the individual's bones, joints, ligaments, tendons and fascia. Unskilled teachers can cause injury by insisting on a "one size fits all" approach to how an asana should be expressed.

This book is indispensable for yoga teachers, and may be of interest to dedicated practitioners who want to understand the physical processes and limitations each body encounters. A teacher serves students best with skillful cues, that encourage the student to look to her own experience to determine how far to go, and whether an adaptation to the posture may be more appropriate. The structure of the book makes it easy to choose how deeply you want to delve into each topic. There is plenty of technical detail for the reader who wants to understand each topic in depth, but the book also rewards the reader who wants to know how to provide useful cues to students without necessarily memorizing the specific constraints imposed by the structural detail of each element of a joint.

This book covers the basic concepts and addresses the specific anatomy from the waist down. A second volume deals with the spine.

[Mica Doria · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the anatomy enthusiast

If you care to learn the fine details of the unique range of motion in the anatomy from individual to individual, this book is for you.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives you a great in-depth understanding of how your body moves through poses and what you need to do to get more out of your body when doing yoga !

[Clara Ced · Rating 3 out of 5]

Otroligt tjock och extremt detaljerad bok om den undre kroppens alla ben och muskler. Perfekt att somna till.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

IMHO, a *must* for anyone seeking to teach yoga! Delves deeply into the ways we are all different and alignment looks and feels different for every body.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good reference. The best parts are the ones that focus on human variation, the reasons for the variations, and how to adapt your yoga practice to suit those variations instead of working towards an impossible and/or aesthetic goal to look like a yoga textbook model. I'll be definitely reading the next volume. That said, I did find a lot of the book quite dry and sometimes repetitive, I think it's a really valuable book but it is a lot to get through (which may be why it took me at least 5 months to finish it!)

[Keri Michalski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed that this book stops at the lower body. It appears that you need to purchase a subsequent volume in order for that to be included - seems deceiving/misleading.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't get through it -- meant for instructors more than the lay yoga person. In fact, I gave it to one of my instructors.

[Jessi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The hook for me in this book was that the authors promised new ways of cueing in yoga. We did not get much of that. Instead, this book is more of an anatomy book with a lot of information about how things pivot, flex, and extend in our body. A lot of repetition in that every body is not the same so traditional poses will not always work or even be beneficial; there are many reasons for "What stops me?".

[Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has amazing content but the order of the book for me was hard to follow, I am not sure if it is because of the quality on kindle or just the way it is laid out. The writing is technical so I think having good knowledge of anatomy before reading this book would be beneficial. Despite the challenges of the lay out I cherish the content!

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wealth of information on anatomy and physiology and safe ways to modify poses for one’s own unique anatomy. I find this a valuable reference, but it is very much a textbook and can be a struggle to get through, especially of a reader does not have prior knowledge of anat & phys or familiarity with practicing yoga.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

First anatomy book I've ever read and I'm so psyched to read the next one (Your Spine Your Yoga)! I learned a ton of potential why's behind "What's Stopping Me?" (WSM?) which helped me to understand why some poses are great for me and others seem impossible no matter how many years I've practiced. Also, a lot of previously mystical [to me] cues were explained. Seeing all the pictures of different bones and study outcomes also helped me to understand the wide degree of variance between different bodies, and even between the sides of my own body!

Bernie's books are always well written, structured, edited and illustrated. Only thing that was rough was the end: an [overly-for-me] detailed section of foot / ankle anatomy. YSYY is in the mail to me now...and will look forward to the final volume on shoulders etc!

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a yoga anatomy book probably geared to instructors. However, It's a good guide to see each detailed body descriptions and how the stretches and position affect different body parts. I recommend it.

[Giulia M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is barely any science in this book, which is not what I was expecting. The introduction by Paul Grilley is interesting, the initial chapter is bearable, but the rest... definitely not my type of book. The information about pain science is terribly outdated as well.

[Duchess_Nimue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will change the way you think of various poses and how differently they look for people.
Definitely not a book for novices in anatomy, this is a well of information for those who want to understand the ways people are built and what that means for them to move.

[Sarahb. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was required reading for my yoga teacher training class. It's a LOT of anatomy, but very easy to read and understand. Good diagrams, sidebar related articles, etc. Good anatomy lessons for the new yoga teacher and student.

[Shawna Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this 4 stars because it was very informative, although anatomy heavy and I was more looking for a book that discussed cues for various poses.

This book without question deepened my knowledge, but it didn't give me exactly what I was looking for.

[Jaime Bayona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buen libro para entender la anatomía que hay detrás de las posturas de yoga en la zona aja del cuerpo. En ocasiones es muy técnico en la descripción fisiológica, pero bo está mal tener ese nivel de profundidad en la descripción cuando se requiera.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to read a lucid, well researched yoga book that says that bodies are different so guess what: alignments are different! Go, Bernie!

[Cloay · Rating 4 out of 5]

- available in SG NLB 613.7046 (Sengkang)

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

[Teresacooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting and incredibly technical... A bit too technical for me as a non science person who is not a yoga teacher.

[Gise Provenzano · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is super detailed, but you need to have strong physical background to read it in a pleasant way and fully understanding it

[Knit Spirit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Le livre parfait qui combine anatomie et yoga de façon claire et détaillée.

[AvidReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening

[yamiyoghurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome, awesome, awesome book.

This book gives a really good introduction to the anatomy of yoga - not the dumbed down version. This is precisely the book I've been searching for, one that would give me a primer to understand the biomechanics of yoga. I'm looking forward to the next volume!