Yoga Mind & Body

This book is easily the best beginning book on yoga I've ever seen.One of the difficulties of finding a good yoga book is that there are so many levels of difficulty at which yoga can be practiced - how do you get one at exactly your level? Plus, you will find some positions easier than others, and be at different levels on different types of positions. And, besides, if a book's good enough to get you to practice a position the right way, then you quickly improve to the point that you need something more.The appeal of this book is that it can span several levels. It explains things thoroughly, and starts with positionsthat are simple enough for beginners. But it also gives several more advanced variations on each position. This lets you take each position according to your present ability, and gives you somewhere to go as you get better.

I am a Yoga Teacher from India and have been practising / teaching Yoga for the past 4 years and I use the Yoga Mind & Body from the Sivananda Yoga Centre as a guide book for my practice / teaching and I find it to be a very extrmely useful guide .Currently I am giving a Morning Yoga Class in a Private T.V Channel as part of its Morning Breakfast show and I use lots of inputs from this book for my T.V Show . It has made an excellent sepraration of the basic / advanced postures and also dealt every posture with very clear step by step instructions on how to come to a posture , how to hold it and how to come out of it and it also deals with the physical , mental and spiritual benefits of each major posture .The most imortant of all is the section of common errors for each major posture that I found it to be very useful .No other book discusses the common errors of the postures as in this book . Apart from postures it also deals with Pranayama , Relaxation,Diet and Meditation . On the whole a very very excellent book .A must for every Yoga Student and Teacher

I've compared to several other books, and I like this one best. Clearly some of the poses are not for beginners (headstand and shoulderstand are the first asanas after the salutations, and drive home that point nicely!), but many of them work nicely for a beginner, with enough scope to grow that I remain interested.I particularly like the fact that this covers quite a lot of asana variations. It's not a substitute for classes, or even videos, but it's a worthwhile adjunct to home practice. It's not a book I've been tempted to leave on a shelf; there's always another thing to try (and sometimes succeed at).This book also touches on other parts of Yogic practice, which I like to see even though I chose this book (from about two dozen others in a good bricks'n'mortar store :-) because I wanted to work first on the physical disciplines of asanas.

I've been doing yoga for 2 years and bought this book 1.5 years ago. It has been a big help to me with finding new asanas to do and how to do them. It also discusses other aspects of Yoga - what yoga means, the various levels, what meditation means and how to meditate. The photos are excellent and show you step by step how to do both beginner asanas as well as advanced postures.I highly recommend this book not only for a beginner, but also for someone who is familiar with practicing yoga.