Self-Awakening Yoga: The Expansion of Consciousness Through the Body's Own Wisdom [With CD]

This is a work of love. Love as a yogi and as a student. This book is full of opportunities to meet with your inner self. I am a Kripalu teacher and had the opportunity to study with the authors and they walk their talk. If you want to take your practice to a deeper place this is a wonderful resource that can support you. Jai, Vanessa Tricoche [email protected]

I am thrilled with the knowledge that Don Stapleton is sharing with us in his somewhat biographical work that introduces intuitive yoga for beginners or advanced students alike. I am working through a torn rotator cuff on my left arm that is frozen shut. Don overcame severe scoliosis by listening to the wisdom of his body, and that has given me hope for my condition. Each week I am slowly getting in touch with the right movements that are indeed healing my arm and whole body. Peace of mind is an added side-effect. I would recommend this book to anyone who has avoided yoga because they are afraid of not doing each movement "correctly." Don teaches you to find your own "correct" movements.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. Before I started my yoga practice, I did Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement, which enabled me to do yoga without hurting myself. The combination of body awareness and yoga is imperative, something that all the yoga-as-fitness books and dvds seem to leave behind. Don's book is a series of inquiries into movement, much in the same way as the Feldenkrais method, but with more possibilities (in my estimation). Record yourself taping the inquiries, as Don suggests, and you will reap the enormous rewards awaiting you in this book. This book's practices changed the way I feel about my body and how I use it. It effected me so much I took a week long class with Don Stapleton, which if it is an endorsement, so be it; he is AMAZING, to say the least. Inspiring. Empowering. What more can I say?

Hello, I've been teaching yoga for a year now, different styles such as Fitness Yoga, Yoga for children, beginners yoga, yoga with the blind. I was finding that my students ( and myself !! ) really were never in a STATE of YOGA with our bodies while doing yoga poses. Then I dicovered Feldenkrais, which although it has many definitions, could be said to be movement awareness and education. Through it, I finally found a way to feel my entire being in the pose, and find an effortlessness to even the most challenging activities. Don Stapleton uses this same approach but makes it more user-friendly for someone with a yoga background, so we see familiar poses that he breaks down to their essence, then invites us to fully explore what our bodies do to get there. He goes deeper by also exploring how to feel the hara and the chakras, but this is not his main focus. I shudder to think how many times I have performed a simple cobra and didn't feel the subtle changes in my fingertips, my toes, my pelvis, and an effortless way to anchor my tailbone to the floor without the usual 'tighten the legs, tighten the buttocks' approach. This book has become my bible on how to connect with my body....the real essence of yoga, after all. Just today I introduced a blind student to the basic techniques of scanning the body, noticing subtle changes in weight distribution etc and he started smiling...for the first time today he actually felt his entire body during Tree, including his ankles, his elbows, his fingertips. It was awe-inspiring. He also said today was the first day in his 57 year old life he understood the mind-body ocnnection. What better praise for a book.

I find the physical exploration of movement and alignment so relevant, for anyone teaching yoga or any physical moving art.