Customer Reviews

Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit: A Return to Wholeness

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm a forty-seven year old man who has been practicing yoga for less than a year. In that time I have read quite a few books on the subject. I was surprised to find so many opinions, theories, teachers, schools, and styles. Yet they all seemed to fall short of giving really clear and understandable explanations of the mechanics of body movement. When I read "Yoga, Mind, Body &Spirit" I quickly recognized it to be, by far, the most logical and reasonable approach to yoga study that I had found. Exercises, refered to as Inquiries, help you to learn for yourself the principles that underlie the practice of yoga. This allows you to begin to fashion a practice tailored to your unique body and its current condition. If I had to choose one book to try and explain the techniqes and essence of yoga, this would be the one.

This is the yoga book I've been waiting for. I am an active middle age athlete/busy professional who has found that yoga makes me feel good and so I've purchased many books and videos in my efforts to learn more on my own.

For me, Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit pulls together the disciplines (moving principles, anatomy, yamas/niyamas, mediatation) one needs to understand to realize the true benefits of yoga practice. The communication of these areas through the written word, photographs and illustrations (incredible helpful), and organization and layout makes every page a gem. Most of all the spirit of Donna Farhi's own "digging" into the subject area and learning comes through in a generous sharing and caring for the reader's own efforts to yield the fruits of yoga practice. Her crystal clear communication, examples, and her unique way of presenting principles have already enabled me to refocus my own practice into a more enjoyable and transforming experience - without all the stress and struggle I generally brought to my practice.

Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit is a wonderful, enjoyable "workbook" and tool for learning more about your own true nature through yoga. And it is one of the most beautifully produced book I own. It's a great experience.

As a child I practices yoga for years, since then I grew up and became totally plugged and lazy to exercise. My job and life didn't allow for any kind of exercise. As my energy decreased I remembered my childohood. I bought this book and it changed my life. It is by far the best yoga book I have read. It gives full descritions for all levels of proficency, describing in detailed poses breaths and props that may be needed for each move. It also shows illustrations of what to do and what not to do. I liked the anatomy digrams that further explain what positions your body should be in. I also liked thefocus on getting to know your body, and yoga being a 'dance' rather than exercise.

I have been doing yoga for about 5 years and this book along with Eric Schiffman's have been revelatory.

Donna Farhi helps make your yoga practice more personal (in terms of how to make your practice more internal rather than external), and more spiritual. She's not afraid to talk about the deeper issues of yoga.

This is a complete book of Yoga in the sense that it's not just a book about how to get your body into the proper "shapes". While the asana instruction is very easy to follow and precise, it teaches you how to make the asana's come to life through "the Seven moving principles".
These are things that I've not seen before in any other book.
These are :

1. Breathe. Let the breath move you.
2. Yield. Yield to the earth.
3. Radiate. Move from the inside out.
4. Center. Maintain the integrity of the spine.
5. Support. Whatever touches the ground becomes the foundation of support for each asana.
6. Align. Alignment is the clear sequential flow of force through the body.
7. Engage. Engage the whole body.

These principles are real eye openers and can bring the asanas alive.

She also give ideas on sequencing principle and much much more.

It is by far the best book on Yoga I have seen and I've read quite a few!

Namaste.

This may be the best yoga book I've ever read. There is an excellent section on the mechanics of movement, and the descriptions of the poses are very thorough, and very detailed. The photos of what NOT to do are especially helpful. This book will be interesting to all yoga students, but I think it's absolutely invaluable for the beginner because it is so well-thought out and descriptive--A must-have!

I recently began practicing yoga and I love it! Due to my busy work schedule, I am relegated to doing yoga via videotapes (Yogazone's Introduction to Yoga and Kathy Smith's New Yoga Basics). I wanted a book to learn more about the types of yoga poses and their purpose. This book is excellent because it illustrates numerous poses and variations. More importantly, Ms. Farhi tells you who should or should not be doing that specific pose and she includes illustrations on the right and wrong way of doing various poses. This book is very informative and I would highly recommend it as a reference point for beginners like myself.

Since I first began practicing yoga several years ago, I've read a ton of different books on the subject, and so far, this is one of my favorites. Author and yogi Donna Farhi takes some of the best elements from other works and combines them into an extremely readable, practical format. For example, she begins by reviewing the eight-limbed path of yoga and then focusing on a discussion of the "ten living principles" - basically, these are moral and spiritual guidelines from yogic philosophy. She then moves on to the asana limb, or the practice of yoga postures, and introduces seven "moving principles" (breathe, yield, radiate, center, support, align, engage) to assist the reader in gaining a greater body awareness within the poses. Farhi also reviews anatomical information in a way that is much more simple and more accessible than in The Anatomy of Yoga (although this is also a wonderful book).

The second half of the book centers around the yoga asanas themselves. Farhi groups the poses into chapters on standing postures, sitting postures, back bends, arm balances and upside-down poses, and restorative postures and breathing practices. Each chapter begins with incredibly useful information on properly aligning the body, including many wisdoms which I had never seen before. The descriptions of the individual asanas are also enormously helpful; many include variations for those unable to attain the full posture. I particularly liked the suggestions included under the "Having Trouble?" section, as these anticipated common complaints in many of the poses; those who are pregnant will also appreciate the prenatal guidelines given for every pose. For the more difficult postures such as upward bow and reclined hero's pose, Farhi offers prepartory positions, often using various yoga props. Finally, the simple black and white photos provide multiple illustrations for each asana, and I found the companion photos showing "correct" versus "incorrect" versions of the poses to be especially beneficial.

The book ends with a chapter on "Putting It All Together"--ie, sequencing the postures into specific yoga practices. This was the one section of the book that I found to be a bit less helpful, partly because the shortest suggested sequence is an hour long and partly because only the names of the asanas are included here, requiring the reader to flip back to earlier sections of the book for the full pose descriptions. Overall, however, I felt that I learned many new things from this book, and I would highly recommend it to yogis of all levels.

I am a yoga practitioner and teacher. I have found this book to be extremely beneficial to my personal practice and my teaching.I teach to many different levels of students often within the same class. By exploring the underlying patterns within the asanas that Farhi discusses, each student learns to modify or deepen their practice according to their own needs. I am able to accomodate a diversified class, and to help fascilitate a richer and more genuine connection to the body.

As a student and teacher of this ancient practice, I found this book invaluable. The beautiful photos and readable text make a lovely and educational partnership. As it did for me, this book can become a reliable resource of inspiration and instruction. I highly recomend it!!!!---
Ned Christensen--Midway, Utah

I've read and really enjoyed Donna's other books, but never bothered to read this one because of my almost 10 years of practicing asana and having read tons of asana books I thought that all of the books said the same thing. I recently took one of her week long trainings and practically filled my notebook with all of this new and great information. Later I bought this book and lo and behold most of it is in this book and her Breathing Book with pictures to boot. This was really a turning point for my practice as before I was more focused on getting the "ideal" yoga pose and not going with my bone structure. Also instead of forcing something to happen I learned to go with gravity, the breath and my natural structure so I can have 'effortless movement'. This concept opened me up to lots of other books that explore this in more detail.

One thing that really stuck with me (and what I think will help you understand where she's coming from) was in her introduction:
"Increasingly doing "good" yoga has come to mean having a beautiful body, remaining forever youthful, and being able to show one's adeptness through the seemingly solid evidence of advanced postures. But as we stretch our muscles deeply or strengthen our abdominals, are we coming closer to feeling a deep peacefulness within ourselves and an inner equanimity that can meet the challenges of life in a compassionate and skillful way? Like the botanist who finally breeds the perfect rose only to discover that in the process he has lost the fragrance of the bloom, when we strip yoga to its mechanics, we also loose something essential.
I have been as guilty as any of both practicing and teaching yoga in a way that made the postures and practices more important than the spirit of the person practicing them. My early obsession with perfecting the forms of yoga brought with it a greater and greater sense of unease and dissatisfaction. The realization that I had bought into dictum of a culture obsessed with achievement and the unhappiness wrought by such striving led me to a long period of deep experimentation in my own practice....I have slowly uncovered a more natural way of discovering the essence of the practice through form. The forms then become vehicles for experiencing one's essential nature rather than goals in and of themselves. Then whether you attain any particular posture becomes irrelevant. The shift from dominating, controlling, or ignoring nature to listening and working with nature's wisdom marks the beginning of this change of mind....
I am convinced that there is nothing new about this approach and that it can best be described as a neoclassical revival of the original way of working first explored by yogis centuries ago..."

In regards to the inquiry parts of the book, they are a much better way for you to learn and understand your body instead of being told what this is doing and what you should be feeling. It also helps you build your kinesthetic awareness. In the workshop Donna came up to me and asked where I was feeling pain in my spine while practicing cobra pose. At first I was baffled b/c I hadn't requested help and didn't notice anything off the top. But she sat their patiently so I took a moment to inquire within and found "hmmm I do have this little tiny twinge". That was my aha moment. She didn't rush me, accuse me, or tell me anything. I felt as if she had given my power back. My power to listen and to know the truth within my body. It was truly amazing and I will always recommend her if you are looking for a more awakened style of practicing asana.