BOOKS!
It’s time again for Sophia’s Shelf, the probably-monthly column where I discuss my latest dance-related reading material! This month we’re going to look at Yoga for Wellness: Healing with the Timeless Teachings of Viniyoga by Gary Kraftsow. This book is required reading for the 8 Elements intensive I’m attending in March, so I wanted to make sure that I read it early enough that I ahd time to go back through and study the parts that I’m supposed to be familiar with for said intensive.
This book made a pretty good initial impression on me because the author spends some time discussing the importance of honoring your own individual body in your yoga practice, and modifying the asanas as needed. He also covers the common “release valves” where we try to compensate for our lack of flexibility or strength to try to reach the “ideal” version of a pose and end up negating the intended benefits of the posture, or possibly even injuring ourselves. As somebody with a lot of weird tightness in weird places, this was really helpful information for me!
As useful as the first part of the book is, the latter part of the book is geared towards developing yoga practices to help with an assortment of medical problems, ranging from injuries to illnesses to mental health. As I am a proponent of well-researched, science-based medicine and not a big fan of alternative medicine, I was glad to see that these chapters repeatedly urge people to use yoga alongside more conventional treatment, as opposed to forgoing their doctors’ advice. However, all of the examples given are based on the specific conditions of a specific student of the author, and the reader is encouraged to not consider them prescriptive. It seems like this section of the book is much more useful for teachers looking for advice and inspiration to develop practices for their students. It might also be useful for an experienced practitioner who is very familiar with their body and yoga. But for me, it was not really relevant at all.
This book has black and white pictures of every asana discussed, and it repeats these pictures whenever the asana is included in a sequence of poses. Although the pictures are a helpful reminder, I don’t think that photos and text are a good substitute for an in-person teacher or a video. I would consider this book to be a handy practice companion and reference, rather than a replacement for classes and videos.
Speaking of pictures, since I purchased the Kindle version of this book and read it on my 8″ tablet, the photos and their captions are a little small. It’s up to you to decide whether you’d prefer the benefits of the digital version (more portable, easy to leave “open” to the page you want while you practice) or the physical version (larger format, easier to flip back and forth between multiple sections).
Over all, I feel like this book explains things clearly and I feel like I’ll be able to learn the things I need to know for 8 Elements, but if I didn’t need it for that class, I probably wouldn’t have ever purchased it. However, if you’re passionate about yoga and think you might want to someday use it to help your body manage an injury or illness, it may prove to be a valuable addition to your library.