Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses

Ten years ago,Claire Dederer threw out her back while breastfeeding her baby daughter. Told to try yoga by evreyone from the woman behind the counter in the co-op to the homeless guy on the corner, she overcame her doubts and signed up for her first class. And she fell madly in love.

Over the next decade, Dederer would tackle poses such as lotus, wheel, and the dreaded crow. She became fast friends with some of them, while others provoked long-standing feuds.

It wasn't just her back that was demanding Dederer do something differently. On the surface, life at home looked pretty idyllic. But she found herself thinking more and more about the forces that had shaped her generation.They were children of the 1970s-their mothers had run away to show more find themselves and handn't been afraid to make a few messes along the way. The daughters, as a result, grew up determined to be good, good, good. They would buy organic, create an enriching home environment, and make their own baby food-even if it meant feeling hemmed in by an anxiously conscientious little world. Yoga seemed do fit right into this program.

To her surprise, Dederer found that the poses weren't just acrobatic feats (though they were that, too). The deeper she explored them, the more they tested her most basic ideas of what makes a good mother, daughter, friend, wife. Sudddenly, headstand was a way to wrestle with anxieties she had always dodged, jump-through helped her understand her mother's flight (and, maybe, her own pursuit of freedom), and the dreaded crow reminded her that losing one's balance could be worth a great deal more than keeping both feet on the ground.

As Dederer's practice deepened, the poses that once seemed so daunting now pushed her toward a life that was a little more improvisational-and a little less tidy. Witty and heartfelt, sharp an irrverent, Poser is the story of Dederer's discovery that what she needed most of all was less goodness-and more joy.

Claire Dederer's essays, criticism, and reporting have appeared in Vogue, The New York Times, Slate, Yoga Journal, Real Simple, and The Nation. She lives on an island near Seattle.

'Let me be honest about somehing: I love yoga, I live for yoga, and yoga has changed my life forever-but it is very difficult to find books about yoga that aren't incredibly annoying. I'm sorry to say it, but yoga sometimes makes people talk like jerks. Thank goodness, then, for Claire Dederer, who has written the book we all need: The long-awaited funny, smart, clear-headed, thoughtful, truthful, an inspiring yoga memoir. To simplify my praise: I absolutely loved this book.'-Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

'This funny, spectacularly well-observed, and moving book does what even yoga can't: it provides solace while making you laugh. I feel three inches taller.'-Henry Alford, author of How to Live

'Claire Dederer is all these women: a doughter attempting to make sense of an irresistibly nutty divorce: a new mother trying to meet the standards of a peculiarly liberal breed of uber-moms: a wife struggling to salvage intimacy in a marriage slammed by exhaustion, mortagae payments, and encroaching in-law as: and a lost soul who stumbles into a yoga studio and finds salvation. Above all, Dederer is a brilliant writer whose prose sparkels and cuts deep. Poser is a book you will want to immediately share with your friends. It's hilarious, unflinching, and bursting with love.'-Maria Semple, author of This one is Mine

'Poser is a bracingly honest investigation of family and freedom, parenting and perfectionism. It is also funny enough to make most writers swoon with envy.'-James Marcus, author of Amazonia

'As a yoga-culture skeptic, I began this book with a certian dread of encountering breathless self-righteous platitudes, but I was immediately charmed and disarmed by Claire Dederer's fiercely intelligent, funny, unsentimental voice. This book contains real, hard-won insights; yoga became, for Dederer, a rebellion against goodness, not a path to it. This story of her revolt against perfectionism is a joy to behold and a true imspiration.'-Kate Christensen, author of The Great Man and The Epicure's Lament

Contents

Prologue: Camel
1 Triangle
2 Eagle
3 Lotus
4 Crow
5 Pigeon
6 Child's pose 1
7 Cobbler's pose
8 Headstand
9 Child's pose 2
10 Scale
11 Lord of the dance
12 Child's pose 3
13 Half moon
14 Pranayama
15 Warrior II
16 Child's pose 4
17 Vinyasa
18 Child'spose 5
19 Foot behind the head pose
20 Crow, again
21 Mountain
22 Seated forward bend
23 Corpse
24 The jump-through
25 Wheel
26 Handstand show less

I almost stopped reading this book about 50 pages in. I was enjoying Dederer's writing, with all of its pithy GenX-ness, but I found her perspective very critical. She seemed to have concluded, since she felt pressured by her peer group to practice attachment parenting and it didn't work for her, that anyone who practiced attachment parenting was doing it because of social pressure. Attachment parenting devotees were some kind of Stepford Wives, blindly following the dictates of the masses. She ignored the idea that maybe attachment parenting works for some people and it didn't work for her. And she described What to Expect When You're Expecting as a left-wing book. I don't know many of my peers who would describe any book that doesn't show more list non-reclining positions for pushing as a left-wing book. We all hated that book. We gravitated towards Ina May Gaskin and Sheila Kitzinger. Had we been less ecologically and free-speech inclined, we would have burned What to Expect When You're Expecting.

Basically, I took her judgements personally, which is kind of ridiculous. I mean, she doesn't know me. We gave birth to our first children five years and nearly 1000 miles from one another. We're part of the same generation, but just barely.

But I soldiered on, and I'm glad I did because this book is all about personal growth. I felt a kinship to Dederer as she moved from being guarded and judgmental to being more open and accepting of other ways of raising children. Although I was on the other side of the fence (e.g., my first child refused a binky so I became militantly opposed to them by my second child), I recognized her journey from traumatic birth experience through anxious early motherhood through gradual comfort with her chosen path separate from what her peers were doing.

Although Dederer places a lot of value on staying in one's hometown, this is a particular downside to staying put, at least from my perspective. I have never had a hometown. I moved every three years as a child. As a grown-up, the longest I've lived in any one place is six years. Until I joined Facebook, I didn't even know what my elementary school friends thought of different parenting practices, much less what they thought of me for being a weirdo mommy. It is, in some ways, liberating to be a nomad, to lose touch with my past.

But by the end of the book I found myself jealous of Dederer. She finds the secret for her, which is to move away for a couple of years and then come "home". I like this idea, but without a "home," this is simply not an option for me. My whole life has been "away." Even if I moved to where my dad is or where my mom is, I wouldn't have a network of lifelong friends to tap into because the friends of my childhood are scattered across the country. I'm equally at home everywhere, and I'm equally a stranger everywhere. Dederer's voluntary exodus from and then voluntary return to her home just highlighted for me how much I don't have a home. It kind of pissed me off. I wanted a place to go home to, goshdarnit!

Even as it pissed me off, though, I delighted in watching Dederer's journey. I could relate to the growth-through-yoga that she experienced. Many of her fears and realizations seemed very familiar to me. I especially appreciated her chapter about handstand. I first attempted handstand in yoga teacher training. There an Iyengar teacher described me as "beyond clumsy" in handstand. It was a caution to another student about me in front of me: "Be careful," he said, "she's beyond clumsy." Meaning, "Watch it because she's likely to fall on you while you're trying to assist her." I know it's silly, but this teacher's words have echoed in my mind at practically every yoga practice I've done since. I've gradually allowed it to become background noise rather than letting it take center stage, but I sure as heck haven't tried handstand since then. (Well, once during a workshop, but I embarrassingly dissolved into tears, and I haven't tried since then.)

Some reviewers have complained that the links between Dederer's personal reflections and the poses for each chapter are rather tenuous. I agree to a point. Some chapters did seem to be "yoga pose" "everything else". But those were the minority. For the most part, I found the link between yoga and her own personal growth to be pretty close.

The part I loved best was watching Dederer accept her reality in a less judgmental way. Rather than comparing herself to everyone else and/or throwing out what she'd built and trying to start over again as her mother had, Dederer took what she had and made it something that worked better for her. I find this inspirational. Even if it does involve having a hometown and a greater skill at making friends than I have. show less

This book connects the author's life, and her sometimes painful realizations, to her practice of yoga. I found her warm and perfectly relateable. Her family moments feel very authentic, as does her need to do the "right" thing as a mother (all the time!) It does help if you have been to a few yoga classes, and I like the fact that she is not judgmental about her instructors. For the most part, she is there to learn and she does come to terms with her childhood and her mother in particular. As a woman's story, I was impressed by Dederer's writing, and her observations and most of all, her very real love and admiration for her children.

I wasn’t drawn to the cover at all, but the topic she was writing about did draw me (yoga, as well as the subtitle: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga poses), so I jumped in with both feet. An endorsement from Elizabeth Gilbert didn’t hurt either. What kept me reading though was the writing. I love the way Claire writes, the way she morphs words into something new; the way she uses language. . . her, um, languaging. Some examples: effortful, forking, efforting, jollity, constellated…
Also her descriptions: “He poured himself the grimmest bowl of cereal ever poured.” (pg. 127). I loved her description of Rodney Yee (pg 123): “…a very buff, eternally youthful Chinese American man with a long ponytail and a serene gaze…”…Yep, show more that’s Rod the Bod.
I also, for the first time in quite a while, came across words in my novel reading that were not immediately familiar to me, that I had to stop and ponder. This is good! Exciting! It’s been a while since that happened. Claire’s previous experience as a book editor and critic and free-lance writer prior to her writing this book come through loud and clear.
Her book is part memoir with some history of yoga mashed in. The way she talks about her 20’s as being “spent exploring” reminded me of how Amy Wood talks about modern young adult hood in her book Life Your Way(previously reviewed book #60).
Claire hides from her family by going to yoga. She hides from her emotions by going to yoga, as well, but when she gets into a pose…bam! There they are, just waiting for her to face and embrace them (sometimes this results in tears falling). She escapes through yoga as a young wife and mother the way she escaped through books as a young girl in a complicated family-of-origin situation. “A book was a terrific place for me. I went there as often as I could.” (pg.144). This was me.
Oh, and she vomits. A lot.
Sometimes you need to back away from something to gain a little perspective on it, whether it’s your kids, your marriage, your career, your yoga…or yourself. Finally, probably the best message I got from this book is this (and I’m paraphrasing her quote from pg. 297): Act like the person you want to be, when and if you can. show less

I couldn't finish this one. Although the writing was lovely and I did identify with a lot of what the author discusses at the beginning (the grandparents' raw need to be near the baby, yoga as a way to ease perfectionism) I ultimately had the same problem with this memoir as I did with Eat, Pray, Love: it's really hard to listen to someone so privileged complain so much.

As a mom who has just gone back to full-time work and is pumping milk all day long while missing my child, I just couldn't get into reading about someone who works as a writer part-time from home, gets to be with her child most of the day, and takes tons of yoga classes. She whines pretty much non-stop about it. I'm too envious to sympathize with her complaints about her show more lifestyle--a lifestyle I would pretty much give a kidney to have.

I will go back to plot-driven fiction for a while and maybe revisit this once I get a little more used to being a working mom. show less

I very much enjoyed this memoir and the yoga and "history of yoga" that is also there. She is spot-on with the wacky "competitive parenting" thing. I am so glad to be past the baby-days! Whew! Her writing is really good, flowing, real, and sometimes luminous. I've only been doing yoga for 9 months and her thoughts have given me a lot of confidence. I am so happy she and her husband stayed connected and together! The thing is, for the record, Claire if you happen to read this: tell your wonderful hubby to GET A JOB! And you too! For heaven's sake all the anxiety about the hand to mouth freelance lifestyle -- just get a job already! Jobs are wonderful. I'm just saying. Real freedom is money in the bank to take care of the kids when it show more hits the fan. Kids are tough and don't need quite so much hovering about! I finished the book and I'm still worried about them! That's actually quite amazing isn't it, and a sign of how drawn in I was. show less

First and foremost, Dederer is a phenomenal writer. Her prose is wry, incisive, hilarious and a joy to read. She also name-checks the Betsy-Tacy books. So I adore her, totally.

The book, not so much. The book is a sprawling sort of memoir that tries to be too many things. The structure imposed by the chapters named for yoga poses just doesn't work. The material is strong enough that it could have stood alone without the awkward wrangling into shape- this would have been so much stronger, I think, as a linear memoir.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it- I did, very much. I just found the structure to be pretty awkward. 3.5