Cool Yoga Tricks » (First Trade Paperback Edition)

MIRIAM AUSTIN has been a student of yoga since 1985 and has taught for many years. Instructing people with normal physical limitations as well as those with serious injuries and illness, through yoga, Miriam has helped people heal themselves of lupus, arthritis, asthma, and high blood pressure and has helped many find relief from back and neck pain. She is the bestselling author of Yoga for Wimps: Poses for the Flexibly Impaired and Meditation for Wimps: Finding your Balance in an Imperfect World.

Craving yoga’s benefits but unable to perform even the simplest postures? Think yoga is only for rubber-limbed supermodels?
If your yoga practice is giving you more stress than stress relief, Cool Yoga Tricks is the answer to your prayers.

Although it seems like everyone from Madonna to your eighty-three-year-old Uncle Teddy is practicing yoga, most of us are unable to do even the simplest classic yoga poses without undue stress and strain. Now in this clear, understandable, easy-to-follow book, Miriam Austin offers alternative yoga routines that help you reap the greatest rewards from your yoga practice, and she reveals shortcuts to help you perform yoga like a pro.
Using everyday items, such as chairs, walls, and blankets, Miriam Austin shows how those of us with normal flexibility limitations can experience the very real benefits of yoga—without dislocating our joints, overstretching our muscles, or giving up in frustration. She makes the basics simple, doable, and down-to-earth.

Dog Tricks—lengthen your spine more fully with these Downward Facing Dog tricks, designed to relax your neck, shoulders, and back—and make your Dog Pose much more lovable.
Befriending Backbends—increase your preztebility with a little help from your friends—and from some garden-variety folding chairs.
Tweaking Your Twists—learn the techniques that will stretch your spine and give you more life energy.
Super Stretches—feel as limber as your average bowling ball? Gently coax your muscles to new lengths by practicing the routines in this chapter.

Library Journal

Many people wonder, "How can I ever perform yoga postures?" Austin's third book (after Yoga for Wimps and Meditation for Wimps) demonstrates more than 100 techniques that may enable participants to execute traditional postures that could be too difficult to perform without various props. By using wooden blocks, yoga mats, bolsters, walls, chairs, benches, straps, and other people, students can extend their bodies' capabilities to perform these asanas safely with proper body alignment and control while enjoying the health and psychological benefits that these poses have to offer. The instructions are clear, and the numerous black-and-white photographs are easy to follow. Both yoga teachers and students can apply Austin's techniques to their routines as a way to progress comfortably toward what could have been an unattainable goal. Her user-friendly book supplements works that describe how to perform basic yoga postures and would be serviceable in both public and academic libraries wishing to expand their collections on this topic.-Deborah Broocker, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Dunwoody Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.