Customer Reviews

Yogi Bare: Naked Truth from America's Leading Yoga Teachers

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It is a rare and worthwhile book that stays with you long after you've turned the last page. This one does.

Whether you are a yoga practitioner or simply an evolving human being, once you read this book you can't forget its words or delightful wisdom. Yogi Bare is just as likely to show up when you're walking your dog and life is grand as when you're thinking about doing bodily harm to the guy with the cell phone who just cut you off in traffic.

Filled with wisdom and humor, Yogi Bare offers a revealing look at the personal stories, triumphs, and struggles of twenty one of the world's leading yoga teachers. As the book jacket says, this is a "how come" book which allows world renowned teachers such as Rod Stryker, Alan Finger, Lilas Folan, and Rodney Yee to tell their journeys and insights in their own words. Yee talks about confronting racism; Finger tells of a lifelong struggle to control his weight; Julie Lawrence talks about her husband's death in Viet Nam and its impact on her life today; Donna Farhi talks about the pain of a father who couldn't connect with his daughter or the world. It is the honesty of these women and men's stories which makes their wisdom so much more relevant and moving.

What a joy the author must have had traveling around the country talking with these teachers. . .and one on one asking them the big questions: Do you believe in the eternity of the soul? Can we remove suffering? What do you strive for every day? Their answers often surprised me.

And of course, since these are some of the most respected yoga teachers in the world, the masters share advice and stories that will enhance and strengthen your own yoga practice. The fun thing about Yogi Bare though is that it doesn't matter if you know a sun salutation from a full moon, you will find something (or like myself a bunch of somethings)that touch, teach, entertain, or inspire you.

Human tragedy, disappointment, healing, humor, love, joy, and triumph all bound together by the thread of yoga postures. . . .and the yoga teachers who have used their discipline as the structure around which they have journeyed through all of them. A wise and wonderful book!!!

to having what amounts to as a chat over tea or coffee to some of yogas current luminaries. From these interviews we learn how the various teachers paths led them to yoga. Mind you, there are no tough questions asked or answered here as to how the west has changed yoga to suit its needs and draw a wider base of clientel thus losing some of the spiritual foundations that it is based upon. Nor does it offer up insight as to why some of these teachers deviated from the type of yoga they originally learned whether it be Iyengar, astnanga, kripalu etc. and created their own style. Also, as one reviewer mentioned, some of the truly great teachers have been left out ( Tim Miller, David Life, David Swenson, Manuso Manos to name a few) and thus this book probably requires a volume II to make it complete.

However, if you are looking to skim the surface of some of the west best yoga practioners and gain just a little more insight into their philosphy and personality than this is a fine, easy reading book.

Fun,easy to read and a delightful travel book. I was moved to tears by some of the stories and moved to practice by others.Let's contact the author and request a sequel.

This book purports to be a set of interviews with America's "most important" hatha yoga teachers, although many of the country's leading teachers are not included here. The book could more properly be called interviews with figures who have taken out the glossiest ads in the Yoga Journal or who appear at the largest number of conferences. Unfortunately, the lack of discrimination in choosing teachers also spills over somewhat in the interviews themselves. The author repeatedly draws attention away from the core issues of practice itself and allows the interviewees to sidetrack him from a disciplined focus on yoga practice. I keep getting the sense of an interviewer who is not particularly experienced and is somewhat "star struck" by talking with these figures. However, it's a valuable and interesting book; I just wish there was more real substance to it.

This book is a wonderful source of information and inspiration!

Philip Self does an outstanding job of asking questions that are truly relevant to each individual Yogi/Yogini.

What you end up with throughout the book is a many petalled lotus of yoga. There are many styles of yoga represented here and the Yogi/Yogini's do bare their personal stories of what brought them to yoga, how it's affected them, their different paths to end up where they are.

It's rare that you get to hear the perspectives of these folks who have and continue to make such an impact on so many others lives. Much of the personal struggles and revelations that are revealed in these pages are things that I could personally relate to on my own spiritual path.

This is the sort of book that you will want to read over and over because it's not just giving you personal information about the the Yogi's/Yogini's themselves but there is much to learn from here and take into your life in addition to helping provide inspiration for your own practice.

Namaste.

This book lets people come closer to these well known Hatha Yoga teachers.They all talk about what drove them to Yoga, to the practice and the teaching of it.They talk about their relationships with their various gurus and how Yoga has changed them and the way they deal with life.We all probably know these faces and names from some incredible asana we have seen them perform in Yoga Journal or a demonstration and a workshop.Here we get a glimpse of their heart and their own journeys in life and Yoga .

Fun,easy to read and a delightful travel book. I was moved to tears by some of the stories and moved to practice by others.Let's contact the author and request a sequel.

I loved this book... I read this book several years ago when I first started teaching yoga and had a lot of questions about my path as a teacher. This book was a wonderful inspiration to me because it brought to life some of the teachers I always looked up to as a student! Sometimes I think we forget that the yoga teachers are just people too... This book brings everything together. This is a must read for anyone new to yoga, or a long time teacher. I keep right there on my coffee table!

In this book, author Philip Self presents a series of twenty interviews with leading yoga instructors, many of whom are some of the most well-known names in yoga today. However, amongst the high-profile figures such as Rodney Yee, Baron Baptiste, Erich Schiffmann, and John Friend, Self has also chosen some lesser-known names, including Italian teacher Gabriella Halpern, Sanskrit expert Vyaas Houston, and Martin Pierce, founder of The Pierce Program. Self devotes an average of about 14 pages to each interview. His questions, while usually thought-provoking, vary widely from one instructor to the next. In general, however, he tends to ask each person to explain what first brought them to yoga and to describe the course of their yogic path. Self also frequently inquires about each individual's current practice routine; it is interesting to note that the majority of the teachers talk about placing less emphasis on asana (physical practice) over time and a greater emphasis on their meditation practice.

As someone who has practiced yoga for about seven years and who was familiar with many of the instructors featured here, I definitely enjoyed reading this book. However, given that it was released in 1998, it felt a bit out of date to me, partly because several of the teachers in the book are in completely different circumstances now, and partly because there are so many more instructors on the American yoga scene at this time. In addition, the DVD market has exploded since this book was published, and thus the list of "Yoga Resources" which the author offers is almost completely obsolete. Finally, I found that the interviews were slanted mainly towards Iyengar teachers, or at least those who were initially Iyengar trained; I would love to see Self do a sequel covering a wider range of yoga instructors.