Beryl Bender Birch

A delightful book to read, both because of the personal history, but also because of the genera background written in an interesting writing style. Although I say I have 'read' it, it outlines a program take will years to work through to doing the more advanced poses. And if I never get there, that's all right. As I went through the book, the poses and sequences were familiar because I had a yoga teacher that used them, even though she didn't use the words 'power yoga' or 'Ashtanga'. Most of show more the people in the class were athletes, and mostly male, and the group was reasonably stable. Thus as the years went by, we started working on some advanced poses, although at the time I didn't know that they were advanced.

Since then, I've been using videos. This book has got me excited about a more energetic practice, like what we used to do when we lived in Tempe, Arizona. Birch gives some guidelines about how long to work on a sequence before moving on to more difficult poses. I appreciate the cautions to do the poses correctly, not try to go beyond one's ability, and in general, exercise some sanity.

Power Yoga is one of the Styles of Yoga mentioned in The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards.

Axioms of Power Yoga

1. You have to be hot to stretch.
2. Strength, not gravity, develops flexibility.
3. Sports do not get us in shape. In fact, sports get us out of shape
4. All injury in sports is caused by structural and muscular imbalance.
5. Muscular imbalance and structural irregularities don't fix themselves.
6. Even iron will bend if you heat it.
7. Stopping training does't correct a imbalance.
8. No matter how fit you are at what you do, when you start something new you have to ease into it.
9. Stretching doesn't equal warm-up. show less

After pulling faces at this audiobook I finally sat down and did the guided meditation. On a busy high street. Surrounded by shoppers. I may not have exactly been entering into the spirit of things but it was better than reading the book.

If you like Ashtanga yoga, this gives you a modified sequence. I find it easier to do the whole sequence and add more difficult poses from the regular sequence when I can. This would have been better for me when I was younger too: quality over quantity!