The book gives the basics for 23 asanas with detailed photographs from all angles. As a yoga instructor, I have on many occassions taken over classes where the students have been doing yoga for several months to several years. What is disconcerting is that although they may have a very superficial understanding of the basic poses, they often have no comprehension of healthful and safe alignment and have developed bad habits. With incorrect posture, form, and body alignment, we tend to sling into the hyperflexible areas of the body and use the wrong muscles to compensate. Some areas, such as shoulders, are tight and clenched although not needed in the particular pose. Others are not engaged at all and have no muscle tone though they may be a key target of the pose. Often the relationship of the various muscles used for each pose is not understood. It is very important to most students to "make a good showing", to take the pose to the perceived ultimate expression to prove to themselves and the surrounding students that they can achieve what they view as perfection or advanced. Unfortunately, to get there, they will often throw their bodies out of alignment in a heroic but misguided attempt to reach their toes, or the floor. The torso will be leaning forward, out the plane of alignment, or the knees will be hyperextended, etc. The desire to flow from one pose to the next and to reach a superficial idea of ultimate expression has become more important than the examination of the safe, proper form for each individual pose. It is rather like trying to run before one has learned to crawl or walk. The genius of Iyengar is that through the use of various props, the perfect expression of each pose can be unique to each individual. A person with long legs and arms can be in a perfect lunge with the hips below the shoulders using no props. Another person with short arms and a shorter torso may need to place the hands on blocks to achieve the same alignment of hips below shoulders in a nice diagonal plane that is safe for the back. What is needed is to be in the alignment that will be healing and therapeutic to the individual person's physique when practiced with attention to detail over time. If we have no understanding of the basics, we practice in a way that consistently throws our bodies out of alignment and this will cause painful imbalances in our bodies over time.
Getting back to the book, this is why a basic book on anatomically correct form is so important. Iyengar is a master at giving people the basic foundation for a safe, healing practice. In this book we learn how to correct ourselves in the posture, common mistakes to avoid, and the benefits, the why, of each pose.
Although the book is good as far as it goes, I prefer the book, "How to Use Yoga" by Mira Mehta, a longtime student of Iyengar, because she has a very good section on the props and how they can be used to modify the poses so they can be safely done for people with a variety of different anatomical variations and health challenges. "Iyengar Yoga for Beginners" is best suited to those who are younger and pretty fit to begin with. It is a fine book to gain a solid foundation of the basic classic poses, but a serious student of yoga will not want to stop there. Another excellent overview of the basic poses that I highly recommend is, "Essential Yoga: The Practical Step-by-Step Course" by Judy Smith.
