Category Archives: fitness

Yoga Instructor / Lotto Girl–A Most Dispicable Combination

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A Product of Non-linearity.

A Product of Non-linearity.

Today, I did Power and Hatha Yoga classes back to back. The instructor for both these classes was highly-skilled, knowledgeable, and challenging–which is to say, somewhere between a Marine Corps Drill Sergeant and the Marquis de Sade in terms of capacity to bring the pain. If there’s not something that threatens to collapse  me into a disheveled  heap of limbs in each class, I risk getting bored. So when I say this yoga instructor is sadistic, I mean it in the most appreciative way imaginable.  And not appreciative  in that “Thank you, Sir. May I have another?” Animal House sort of way, but genuinely.

All that being said, there’s one particular piece of Sadism that stands above the rest, and that is a predilection for non-linear counting.

Imagine you’re in a pose, say a back bridge with one leg up in the air. The teacher has been counting down in the usual fashion taught to school children. You are quaking and your muscles are burning, but, from the integers being rattled off, you suspect you’re near being able to release and seek the momentary solace of some other unforgiving act of contortionism that will eventually have a different part trembling. However, sensing she needs more time to make a circuit of corrections, the teacher abandons our much-beloved linearity and begins rattling off numbers like the weather-girl who makes the nightly lotto drawing. (e.g. “and 4…3…37… 19…”)

Wait, what?   I can’t cry–at least not first. I’m the only man in room. Besides, sobbing might dislocate something.

Now, I’m aware that a true yogi wouldn’t give a whit what random numbers were being “counted” off. Said yogi would find his bliss in the asana and melt into oneness with the universe. However, being closer to the type of Yogi who likes to steal pic-i-nic baskets than the kind whose “Kundalini is awakened” (I’m not even sure what that means; I hope it’s not dirty), I still find it presents a challenge.

BOOK REVIEW: The Science of Yoga by William Broad

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The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the RewardsThe Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards by William J. Broad

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I brought a great deal of interest and enthusiasm towards this subject as I began reading this book. As I proceeded to read, my feelings about The Science of Yoga became much more mixed. At its best, the book shows the state of scientific research on yoga and crushes myths that are deeply ingrained, and it points out risks of which yogis and yoginis should take notice. At its worst, it is sensationalism run-amok–suggesting hugely expensive solutions to issues that are either relatively small problems or that the author fails to prove are really problems at all. Put more simply, at its best it’s outstanding, but at its worst it’s tripe. What I will say about this book is the same thing that its author says about yoga, which is that—on balance—it does more good than harm.

The book is arranged into seven chapters, each of which discusses the scientific research on a different dimension of controversial beliefs about yoga. These include the historic claims of supernatural yogic abilities, the issue of whether yoga increases cardiovascular health, the role of yoga in mental health and well-being, the safety of practicing yoga, the role of yoga in healing, the sexual claims of yogis, and whether yoga enhances creativity. It is written in a scholarly format, heavily end-noted and with bibliographic citations. There is front matter giving information about key people, time lines, and yoga styles in outline form.

In an afterword, Broad points out that this has been his most controversial book to date. I can see why, but, to be fair, I’m sure much of the criticism is unfairly based on a failure to read the book or a desire for the author to treat many of yoga’s mythical aspects as science (as many of its practitioners do.) The former problem was exacerbated by the fact that a single chapter excerpt was published in the New York Times as a teaser for the book. Designed to spark controversy (always good for readership), it was one of the most negative of chapters—the one dealing with yoga injuries. Some who took umbrage probably didn’t realize that Broad is a yoga practitioner, and that there are chapters that are overwhelmingly positive on yoga (e.g. the chapter on “mood” which deals with yoga’s influence on psychology has mostly great things to say about the discipline.) While all of the chapters combine a mix of good and bad news, one comes away from some of them seeing a positive picture of yoga and others with a negative one. In the first half of the book it seems as though chapters may have been arranged to alternate positive and negative dimensions.

Of course, there will also be people who are outraged because of the discussions of the debunking of the con games of their beloved yogis, or for a failure to discuss the critical importance of things like Chakra fluffing. It should be noted that Broad doesn’t deride or mock such spiritual beliefs, he more or less ignores them beyond the occasional off-hand mention—as one would expect in a book about science.

My primary criticism with The Science of Yoga is a common one consideration of problem-solving utilizing public policy (not just with respect to yoga), which is to become so impassioned about a problem that you lose all sight of cost-benefit considerations or the negative feedback effects incentivized by your “solutions.” The problems about which Broad gets so exercised as to suggest an overhaul of yoga as we know it, largely fall into two categories. First, there are problems that are exceedingly rare but catastrophic for in individual involved. This is exemplified by the apparent heightened incidence of strokes among individuals engaged in certain inversions (e.g. a shoulder stand in which the neck is under compression.)

In an interesting turn away from science, Broad makes assumptions in the face of lack of evidence about the incidence of stroke in yoga practitioners. He assumes that yogis have at least the same incidence of stroke due to vertebral artery injury as the general population because of inversions and other yogic activities that put pressure on blood vessels in the neck. He does make clear that it’s just a guess, but one could equally well speculate that those who practice yoga suffer a diminished rate of such strokes because of greater flexibility and strength in the neck. (For the most part the human body is an anti-fragile system, i.e. it grows stronger when subjected to stresses—up to a point—than when shielded from stresses.) While he does call for increased study of the issue, he’s also simultaneously calling for expensive reforms. In essence, he’s calling for a solution before awaiting the evidence that there’s actually a real problem. Stroke is the 800 pound gorilla of the risks the Broad writes about in terms of damage, and so it’s not surprising that he paints the risk in ominous terms. He criticizes the Yoga Journal for dismissing it as a “minuscule number of cases”, but even taking his estimate of 300 (and realizing it could be much lower and is compared to 800,000 cases of stroke per year in the US according to the CDC) “minuscule” does not sound that out of line in a country of 314 million people.

Second, there is the issue of bad information being spread by yoga teachers and authors either because they don’t know any better or because they have an incentive to deceive. This is exemplified by the widespread notion that yoga (and particularly pranayama— breathing exercises) increases one’s cardiovascular fitness. Is it wrong? Yes, but it’s not clear that this propagation of bad information has hurt anybody. That may sound harsh, but—think about it–many people lead long and fruitful lives believing things that aren’t true. Now you may say, “Yes, but people who believe the Earth is flat can’t get hurt believing that, but yoga practitioners can be hurt by wrong information.” I would agree that some wrong information could be damaging, but consider the example given, which–I might add–is one of the main thrusts of Broad’s book. If it were the case that many people got fat because they thought yoga would help their cardio when instead it decreased their metabolism (as the evidence suggests it does), then no one would believe the myth. The idea wouldn’t have the strong hold that it does. What happens more often is that people either lose weight because they stress and eat less or they stay the same—either way they haven’t been hurt any more by bad information. Even if someone came to yoga to lose weight and gained some, they will abandon yoga and go to Zumba or Taebo with greater flexibility and probably a diminished risk of injury for having done yoga.

By spreading information about the risks and the state of scientific understanding of them Broad is doing good work. However, he goes on to suggest that we need lots of bureaucrats to monitor and license yoga and that we need much more rigorous requirements for yoga teachers than the 200 or 500 hour Yoga Alliance certifications that currently exist (or the teaching certificates issued by the gurus or teacher trainers of various styles of yoga), and herein lies two problems. It’s not clear that a problem exists to merit such an expensive solution.

First of all, many of the worst cases that he points out were people engaged in questionable practices on their own. I’m sorry for my frankness, but you can’t regulate stupid out of existence. There was one kid who sat for hours in Vajrasana (sitting on haunches), one who fell asleep in a forward bend, and another who had a stroke after holding a shoulder stand on a hard surface for hours. Now, my experience may not be as extensive as others, but I’ve attended yoga classes in the US, India, and Thailand. I’ve had teachers tell me to hold a pose for 5 deep breaths. I’ve even had teachers tell me to hold a pose for 10 deep breaths. No teacher has ever said to me, “Hold that pose for four hours or until you have a stroke, whichever comes first.” Even teachers with a couple hundred hours of instruction and a couple hundred more of experience don’t—as a rule—give patently stupid advice. (To the degree that there are rare exceptions, thinking that no teacher would ever again give a piece of bad advice if they just all had PhDs is a little presumptuous.)

The major problem with Broad’s suggestion of a need to overhaul the system and install bureaucratic gatekeepers and overseers and to make teachers jump through vastly more educational hoops is that it increases the cost of doing yoga with a teacher. Now, I know that yoga is associated with relatively affluent people, but—believe it or not–there are yoga practitioners who aren’t SUV-driving, Abercrombie&Fitch-wearing, maid-hiring suburbanites. If the monthly cost of attending yoga class goes from tens of dollars to hundreds of dollars because every yoga teacher has to have a PhD in Kinesiology and every studio has to comply with the extensive regulations and licensing fees of the newly formed Department of Yoga Management, then many people who are happy with the level of instruction they are currently getting are going to be emulating books and videos and injury rates could actually go up.

Another example of a “problem” that is not definitively shown to be a problem is Broad’s extensive criticism of an author of a popular book on yoga (i.e. Larry Payne) for using a Ph.D. designation that was from a southern Californian diploma-mill. While there is something objectionable about putting a PhD behind one’s name that wasn’t justly earned, it’s not at all clear that this was a problem. One expects to hear how Larry Payne left a pile of wrecked souls in his wake. However, while Broad devotes pages to ridiculing Payne for putting PhD after his name, the few mentions of the Payne’s interactions with others suggest that he helped them get healthier (e.g. Dr. Ursatine) and that he furthered the state of his professional field. The implication being that the credential matters vastly more than the individual’s experience and diligence. Interestingly, Dr. Fishman (for whom Broad has nothing but kind words—presumably because he holds an MD) is quoted as speaking glowingly about Payne and his contributions to the field.

Another example of sensationalism can be seen in the chapter on sexuality. While we would expect this chapter to be entirely about the claims of yoga being able to enhance one’s sex life, a fair amount of it is devoted to pointing out instances of lecherousness among yogis. I’m not saying that it’s bad to point out bad behavior of gurus in terms of harassing or molesting their female students, but unless there’s some evidence that this inclination is tied the sexual practices of yoga, this would seem to be the wrong venue for the discussion. In other words, if yogis are no more lecherous on the whole than other teachers or coaches, then it would seem that mention of this issue is just to titillate. If yogis are uncontrollable horn-dogs because of yogic practices, then fine, but you’ve got to establish that there’s evidence for that somehow.

Overall, I’d recommend that individuals interested in the scientific literature on yoga read this book. It provides a good overview of the literature, and is well-cited. The books weakness comes from insisting that a large number of mole hills are really the Himalayas. These mole hills can be addressed with education, but can never be eliminated. Suggesting we upend the apple cart to produce “solutions” to marginal problems is ridiculous. We may think a world in which there was never another fatal traffic accident would be nice, but I assure you we would not want to live in the world in which all the actions were taken necessary to achieve said goal. If one compares the extrapolated estimates of hospital visits for yoga injuries, they are really quite few and we have no reason to believe that the vast majority aren’t life-threatening or permanently disabling.

For me it would have been a great book if it laid out the risks and rewards, and suggested caution. Of course, then it probably wouldn’t have gotten any more attention than the many books that already exist on the subject of yoga injuries, so maybe some good can come of Broad’s implication that going to the yoga studio is akin to storming the beaches at Normandy and that we need to stop the horrors or yoga practice.

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Yoga for Martial Artists

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Long before I ever took a yoga class, I was doing a kind of yoga. It may have even had its roots in India, but it also might have blossomed independently. In the Japanese martial art I study, we called it junan taiso, and many of the poses would be recognizable to a yogi. While it didn’t include the complex and balance-challenging poses seen in yoga, stretches like the butterfly (Poorna Titali Asana), straddle stretch (Upavistha Konasana), and the back stretch (Pashchimottanasana) were virtually identical. As with yoga, the manner of breathing was as important as the nature of the stretch.

Butterfly Stretch (Poorna Titali Asana)

Butterfly Stretch (Poorna Titali Asana)

Back Stretch (Paschimottanasana)

Back Stretch (Paschimottanasana)

Straddle Stretch (Upavisthakonasana)

Straddle Stretch (Upavisthakonasana)

Flexibility is key in the martial arts, and not just the ones with high-flying kicks. Even grapplers and practitioners of the less fancy striking systems gain from increased flexibility, but it isn’t only increases in range of motion that yoga offers.

Let’s consider a modest front kick to a target no higher than the solar plexus. One might be inclined to say, “I don’t need yoga to help with that, I do that kick all the time, and have no problem reaching my target.” Do an experiment. Take a full 30 seconds to do the kick, from the time the foot leaves the floor to the time it extends out, and then hold it for 15 seconds, or so. If you succeeded in this without any problem, you may be good to go.

Front kick, slow-motion style.

Front kick, slow-motion style.

However, there are three problems that might plague one, and yoga is tailor-made to fix two of them. First, you may not have adequate range of motion. You may have thought you did because you can kick at speed and reach the target. But, you say, “Why would I need to kick in slow motion?” You wouldn’t, but this exercise shows you that you are having to use inertia to kick through the resistance of your own muscles. Unless you’re a hardcore bodybuilder that resistance might not seem too daunting, but you are essentially having the brakes applied–albeit softly–to your kick and that’s costing you speed and power.  Yoga can help you develop that range of motion. Consider the pose below, which requires the same type of flexibility.

Hand to Big Toe (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)

Hand to Big Toe (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)

Maybe you can raise your leg, but keeping it cantilevered in place is too much for you. This means you don’t have the strength to support your own leg. Either your leg is  heavy, your strength is lacking, or both. Building this kind of strength isn’t necessarily yoga’s forte. There are styles and approaches that may help you build that strength, but there are other things you can do that may be more efficient for that purpose–not the least of which is doing a whole bunch of kicks one after the other without a break until your leg is burning, and then doing some more.

You may have had the strength and flexibility, but found it hard to stay on balance. The naysayer says, “Yeah, but that imbalance would never be noticeable at speed. That is (as with the lack of flexibility) one can hide weaknesses with speed. While there maybe some truth in this, a lack of balance will cost you in subtle ways, and yoga can help. There are a number of postures that enhance one’s balance, balance on one’s foot, one’s head, or one’s hands (the latter could be useful for the ground grapplers.)

Warrior III (Virabhadrasana III)

Warrior III (Virabhadrasana III)

Headstand (Shirshasana)

Headstand (Shirshasana)

The Crane (Bakasana)

The Crane (Bakasana)

Tree (Vrksasana)

Tree (Vrksasana)

There are a couple of other areas in which yoga can help one’s performance as a martial artist. One is expansion of bodily awareness of issues of alignment and posture. These might not seem so crucial, but if you are in the martial arts for the long-haul, then having the awareness to make small adjustments can be the difference between chronic ailments or a lack thereof. It can be difficult to discover a misalignment in the quasi-combative environment of martial arts training. It’s easier to notice these issues in the slow and controlled practice of yoga.

Postures like Warrior II and the Side Angle Pose and show you where you are holding tension that you might not otherwise be aware of.

Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II)

Warrior II (Virabhadrasana II)

Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)

Side Angle Pose (Utthita Parsvakonasana)

It must also be remembered that asana (postures) are only a part of yoga. Another aspect that can be extremely helpful for martial arts is pranayama, or the discipline of breathing.  There’s no substitute for cardio, but that doesn’t mean that one can’t benefit greatly from learning more about how to breath, and the science of breath. This is an area in which yoga excels. The great yogis made extensive study of breath and the effects that are achieved by various types of breathing, and these exercises can expand and strengthen the diaphragm and the muscles of the rib-cage. One tends to see the coup de grace strike and think, “There’s your problem.” However, often it’s fatigue that’s the underlying culprit. Better breathing can reduce fatigue.

Of course, meditation is another critical skill for calming the mind and learning to live in the present. Many martial artists already practice some form of meditation, but this is another option.

There is one more benefit and that is building greater confidence in your ability to exercise control over your body. There are many challenging postures in yoga. I don’t advocate all asana that have been taught historically because there can be such a thing as too much flexibility for a martial artist and some poses exercise joints in ways that were not meant to operate. There needs to be a proper balance of strength and flexibility, a proper tension within /between the skeletal and muscular systems. However, there are many poses that just take a bit of time and effort to develop the skill without putting too much wear on the body.

8-Twists Pose (Astavakrasana)

8-Twists Pose (Astavakrasana)

Tradition v. Modernity in Fitness and Movement Arts

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TheScienceofYoga_BroadOne of my favorite professors (and I had a lot of them) was in the Religious Studies department of Indiana University in Indianapolis (IUPUI.) Among the lessons he taught us were the various forms of fallacious reasoning applicable to the discipline. He did so in a way that was both erudite and folksy, often in a humorous way.

 

 

 

While I don’t remember the formal names he gave these concepts or their technical definitions, I do remember the more colorful variations. One was the “firstist-is-bestist” fallacy in which it’s assumed that the old ways are inherently superior because bad ideas die out, and young ideas are at least as likely to be crap as not. This is sometimes called “appeal to tradition.” Over a sufficiently long time horizon this assumption may prove true (i.e. the time horizon beyond which Keynes warned we’d all be dead), but we know that wrong ideas can live on for centuries.

 

 

 

Another was the “outhouse” fallacy, which says that because pre-modern man didn’t have indoor plumbing they must have been complete idiots, and we should assume newer is better. This is sometimes called the “appeal to modernity.”  While there is some advantage to having access to the compiled knowledge of history, this doesn’t keep people from coming up with idiotic ideas regularly.

 

 

 

What made me think about these conflicting fallacies is that I’ve been reading a lot about the science of yoga–and other systems of movement–lately. Specifically, I was reading The Science of Yoga by William Broad. During the 20th century, yoga went from not giving a whit about science to trying to show that it wasn’t at all at odds with science–if not that it was grounded in science. (Note: this statement could be applied to many of the old ways—e.g. religions—which sought to prove themselves consistent with scientific evidence out of fear that–in the age of rationality–to be inconsistent with scientific observation would be death to old beliefs.) While the hucksters and con men seeking to bilk people out of money through shows of yoga “magic” have lost power (though some still exist and prey on the gullible regularly), this isn’t to say that science has yet won the day entirely.

 

 

 

Chapter two of Broad’s book discusses the findings of the scientific community on whether yoga has any merit as aerobic exercise. (The consensus is that it doesn’t.) Now, one would think that the whole yoga community would be pleased that academia has for the most part shown that yoga has a range of positive benefits that make it a worthwhile endeavor when practiced safely and conscientiously, but some have been unwilling to accept that yoga isn’t excellent cardio on top of all its unambiguous benefits. The established consensus is being ignored and a single seriously flawed study (small sample size, no control group, and—while peer-reviewed—the author was the journal editor) is cited, that one—of course—suggests that yoga meets all one’s cardio needs.

 

 

 

It’s easy to follow the incentives. For example, if one runs a yoga studio one would like to be able to say that yoga is a panacea for all of a person’s health needs. People are busy and lazy, and if someone else can sell them a silver bullet then they’ll lose business.  If one gives the matter thought, it becomes hard to imagine an exercise panacea. Consider a list of health goals that includes reduced stress, improved balance, greater flexibility, more strength, and enhanced cardiovascular capacity. One should see that some of these goals are at odds with each other. The first three goals—at which yoga excels–require holding a static position for a time while engaging in deep and controlled breathing. The fourth goal, strength enhancement, (which yoga achieves only in a limited way) requires repeated alternation of stressing and relaxing a muscle. And cardio, the fifth goal,–for which yoga is less than helpful–requires rapid and sustained motion so as to cause the heart to be stressed.

 

 

 

Of course, individuals have tried to rectify yoga’s cardio deficit by creating yoga styles that add speed and repetition. If one does five sun salutations per minute for 45 minutes, then—congratulations–you are now getting cardio and strength building. Unfortunately, you are now losing out on the first three goals of stress reduction, balance enhancement, and flexibility improvement. Those three things requiring holding poses while engaging in relaxed and controlled breathing. So the question is whether one is happy having sacrificed the benefits yoga does better than everything else in a desire to have yoga gain benefits that other exercise systems probably still do better.

 

 

 

The old systems of movement and exercise, be it yoga or chi kung, have shown themselves to have merit. However, the mechanisms by which that merit is achieved (or the nature of the merit) are often not what the system’s mythology suggests. There’s no need to fear science, but one should be ready to embrace what is shown true and set aside what is shown to be false.

 

 

 

On the other hand, this modern idea that we can have our cake and eat it too by throwing together disparate systems, which often have conflicting goals and modes of operation, needs to be reevaluated. All of these fads have been created where someone crams together tai chi and yoga or yoga and jazz dance or Zen meditation and parkour and they think they have the ultimate system based on a more complete picture of modernity, and what they’ve got is a muddle.

 

 

 

What we need is the tested merit of tradition without its voodoo, and the compiled knowledge of modernity without its hubris.

 

BOOK REVIEW: Vajramushti by Christopher Fernandes

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Vajramushti; Martial Arts of IndiaVajramushti; Martial Arts of India by Christopher Fernandes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

There aren’t many English language books on Indian martial arts, and most that do exist address a single style (most commonly Kalaripayattu.) Christopher Fernandes’s book, therefore, fills a void by providing an overview of martial arts on the subcontinent, and for the most part the book does an admirable job. I do have a couple of criticisms of the book that I’ll get into further down in the review.

The 350 pages of this book are arranged into 17 chapters, with the front and back matter of a scholarly work (i.e. in addition to an introduction and epilogue there are appendices and a bibliography.) The first few chapters set the historical background, and the last few chapters address topics that are related to—or interconnected with—the martial arts, e.g. pranayama (breathing), Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine), dance, and games of martial relevance. Chapters 6 through 11 form the core of the book, and this is where one gets the book one expected. These core chapters are organized by region, and each gives an overview of one of India’s martial arts in great detail. The arts covered include: Thang ta (northeast), Gatka (author classifies as Central, but it’s commonly associated with the Sikhs [i.e. Punjab, in the Northwest]), Yudhkaushalya che Talim (Central), Silambam (south, Tamil Nadu), Kalaripayattu (south, Kerela), and Marma Adi (South). It’s not all-inclusive, but that might not be possible in a single volume. It does hit the major arts and covers a range of weapons and unarmed skills, and I suspect offers a fair representation of Indian martial arts past and present.

I have two major criticisms, and a third mild criticism. The first is purely technical and likely only applies to the Kindle edition (that’s the only edition I’ve seen), and you can probably guess my gripe. The formatting on the e-version of the book is poor. While this book isn’t as graphics-intensive as a typical martial arts book (i.e. there aren’t long sequences of technique photos) there are many graphics—and necessarily so. It would be hard to convey all the information in textual form for this type of book (e.g. consider the value of a picture of a complex weapon over a description.) What happens in Vajramusthi where the graphics are inserted is that the captions get kicked in among text. At least they italicized the captions so one can get used to this oddity, but it’s a bit hard on readability when one is reading along and there is a fractional caption randomly inserted mid-sentence. The photos also cause odd white space and very narrow columns here and there.

The second major criticism is that the book often forgets its theme. By that I mean that the author goes into far too much depth on topics that are tangential to the subject at hand and sometimes fails to indicate how the subject at hand is relevant. I’m not saying that historical background and discussions of breathing and Ayurveda shouldn’t be included, they are both quite pertinent, as are the other chapters that are more tangential. However, at one point the author provides a mini-herbal field guide that seems a bit too much information for those specific herbs, but, because it’s not an Ayurveda herbal field guide, he only covers a few. This creates a book that sometimes doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be or who its intended audience is. It’s most confusing in the early chapters that begin with the dawn of humanity. Obviously, the development of martial arts is inextricably tied into the rise of societies and states, but the author doesn’t consistently do a good job at connecting these dots so the book can maintain a consistent theme. I should point out that history buffs, dance enthusiasts, or physical education nerds may find the bonus material fascinating—and it is; it just belongs in different books. It does indicate that the author has done his research. While I’m a neophyte on the subjects covered, I believe that the quality of the information is quite good. (Although myth and fact are sometimes equated as with the discussion of Bodhidharma—a myth that many historians now believe false.)

The third criticism is classified minor both because it only comes into play in the epilogue and because if I was going to criticize every martial arts book author for this sin, I’d rarely have anything nice to say about a martial arts book. At the tail end of the book the author suggests that all the other martial arts of the world are just superficial competitive endeavors and only the Indian martial arts have depth that can lead to bettering oneself in a broad sense. This is a complete oversimplification, and especially odd for someone (like the author) who has apparently trained in other systems. (At one point there is a photo of Bruce Lee, captioned “Epitome of a Warrior,” and I can only assume from his commentary in the epilogue that the author is mocking the founder of Jeet Kune Do.) I do understand the passion that inflames the author’s sentiments, which is sadness that young Indians who study martial arts overwhelmingly look to the East—just as those in Europe and the Americas do. In Bangalore, where I live, there are two places that I know of that teach Indian arts (both Kalari) and at least eight places one can learn Muay Thai—not counting the fitness centers that have no one qualified to teach MT but do so anyway. Still, one need not take cheap shots at other martial arts in attempting to encourage people to study the indigenous arts.

While my review may come across as critical, there’s really not much wrong that a skilled editor and formatter couldn’t fix. (For example, one could get blitzed playing a drinking game whereby everyone takes a shot whenever they read the exact words “Vajramushti the classical Kshatriya Lion’s skill.”) The book’s virtues tend to outweigh its vices. If there were as many books out on the Indian martial arts as there are about those of China, Japan, or Korea, I don’t know that this one would get my recommendation in its present state, but there aren’t and so I do recommended it. It’s well-researched, contains useful graphics, and it provides insight into how the martial arts fit into the history, yogic science, and movement arts of India—if sometimes a bit too much insight.

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How to Choose a Muay Thai Gym in Thailand

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Tiger MT Beginner's Area. (The mats are up for cleaning to prevent Staph outbreaks.)

Tiger MT Beginner’s Area. (The mats are up for cleaning to prevent Staph outbreaks.)

So you’re going to Thailand and you want to learn a bit of Thai Boxing. Where do you go to train? This is the question under consideration in this post.

I just got back from two weeks of training at Tiger Muay Thai & Mixed Martial Arts on Phuket. This was my second experience training Muay Thai (MT) in Thailand. In October of 2012, I spent 6 days at the Muay Thai Institute (MTI) in Rangsit (a suburb of Bangkok.) The training at both places was awesome, but quite different. This got me thinking about what type of student would find each of these two places ideal. Both of these schools has a niche of students who would find it better suits their needs than the other.

First let me point out a factor that one might think is crucial that really isn’t so much, and that’s price. While I’ve only attended the two schools, I did quite a bit of web research and found that prices don’t range that widely. Particularly in Phuket, where there is a saturation of the market, everybody seems to charge around 3,000 Baht ($91USD) per week—give or take 500Baht. While 2,500 to 3,500 Baht ($76 to $106 USD) might seem like a big gap, there could be very reasonable explanations for why a gym is at the high or low end. Low cost gyms may be more remote, and thus have fewer customers. One should take into account that if one has to rent a scooter or take taxis or pay exorbitant rates for food, one might not be so happy with tuition savings. A gym at the high-end might offer more training opportunities beyond MT, may have more facilities, or may have more prestigious trainers (or just more trainers–period.) [Note: For what you pay you can probably get 24 to 28 hours of classes in per week.]

Now I suspect there are some who will say, “Hey, stop relying on the internet. Find out where locals train. There are gyms that produce winning fighters, but that just aren’t as fancy/web-savvy but are much cheaper.” This may be true, and– if one speaks Thai–that may be the way to go. However, the places that have glitzy English-language websites, usually also have trainers and staff that speak English and that can be a big advantage if one doesn’t know more than Su-was-dee-krap and Kob-Kun-krap.

Note: What I’m saying about price doesn’t necessarily apply to lodging and food. Some gyms offer accommodations and meal plans that may not be competitive with what one can do at local guesthouses and restaurants. Web research should tell you whether you are getting a decent deal staying at the gym. If you don’t mind Spartan accommodations (and I don’t) the baseline gym rooms often offer great savings. I stayed at the gym at both MTI and Tiger, and found it was a good deal (but, again, I don’t need TV, AC, or other luxuries–a bed, a fan, and my Kindle pretty much have me covered.)

Tiger had a meal plan, but I didn’t use it. However, I can’t say that I even looked at its price. I like to try as many different places as I can, and I ate at most of the restaurants and cafes on that strip. I will say there are a lot of cheap, tasty, and nutritious places to eat within walking distance of Tiger. My experiences with the restaurants on the strip were overwhelmingly positive.

So this brings us to what does matter. Some questions you should ask are:
-What is the typical student/trainer ratio?
-What styles are taught at the gym? (i.e. Only Muay Thai or other disciplines as well?)
-Are classes mixed abilities or are there skill level divisions?
-What does the typical class consist of for the level at which you will be training?
-What are the trainers like and how does that jibe with what you need?
-Where is the gym located, and how close is it to the services you’ll need?

Of course, the central question that undergirds five out of six of the questions above is, “What do you want to get out of the training?”

The MTI Gym from my room.

The MTI Gym from my room.

Student/Trainer ratio: How important this is varies radically depending upon what one wants from training. If one is going to class primarily for fitness, having a low student/trainer ratio may not be important. However, if you are looking to improve your technique, it matters greatly because you need attention to the minutest details.

I attended Tiger in peak season and MTI just before peak travel season. That said, I think I can safely say MTI probably always offers lower student/ trainer ratio. (I don’t think MTI’s student attendance is as tourism-cyclic as it has more Thai and expat students and relatively few foreign visitors at a given time. Tiger MT is probably very tourism-centric at the beginner level.) In Rangsit, there was often one trainer to every one or two students. The beginner’s class at Tiger had many students per trainer. However, Tiger offers four separate classes of Muay Thai (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Fighter), and as one moves up there are fewer students per trainer. So if you “test out” of the beginner’s class your ratio gets better.

One should note that at the extremes one may find a low student/trainer to be more a curse than a blessing. First, one will not have many different people to train with, and diversity of training partners is important to growth. Second, having eyes on you every second may become overbearing, particular if the trainer is fixing every tiny error. In such situations, one may never get into the grove.

What do they teach? The two schools I’ve attended were at opposite ends of the spectrum on this issue. MTI taught Muay Thai–that’s it and that’s all. If you just want to improve your Muay Thai, MTI is a great place for it. There’s not the distraction of tons of people coming through doing other things.

Tiger MT, on the other hand, taught about everything there is to teach. If you want to get into Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), they’ve got you covered with classes on MMA tactics, Brazilian Jujutsu (BJJ), and Boxing in addition to Muay Thai. On the other hand, if you’re a martial arts wonk, who likes to get into the evolution of the arts or understand the combat aspects, they also teach Muay Boran and Krabi Krabong. Muay Boran is the unarmed ancestor to Muay Thai, and Krabi Krabong is a weapons system.

Mixed abilities v. Tiered classes: If you are a rank amateur, an advanced practitioner, or a competitive fighter, you may be pleased with multiple tiers of classes. A beginner may be intimidated or uncomfortable training with advanced students. Advanced student may have a lackluster training experience when working with a lot of people who are well below their skill level. On the other hand, if one has a bit of confidence and fitness, one may find a mixed abilities class enjoyable because one gets an opportunity to pit oneself against more skilled or experienced training partners.

In reality there was not much difference between Tiger and MTI here, though it might look like there was. As mentioned, Tiger MT had four different classes for MT and these were held in distinct areas, but all the other courses (e.g. MMA and BJJ) were mixed abilities. At MTI, everybody was taught in one big gym. However, because there was a low student/trainer ratio, there were usually at least three or four distinct groups (sometimes groups of one or two) training concurrently and the gym was big enough for these small groups to not be in each other’s way.

Class schedule: There’s a widespread standard approach to Muay Thai teaching that goes: running laps, other warm-up exercises, drills / shadowboxing, rounds of bag work, rounds of focus mitt drills, rounds of sparring, and cool down exercises. However, the emphasis can vary tremendously from one gym to another. In particular, some schools will make great efforts to drill the basics before putting a student into sparring or teaching more complex tactics. Other schools have their beginners hit the ground running to a greater degree. Each of these approaches will appeal to a certain type of student. Some want to get into the meat of training by sparring as soon as possible even if their fundamentals are a bit shaky. Others are concerned about having solid foundations before building upward.

Of course, this is all a matter of degree. At every gym, beginning students are going to spend more time drilling than sparring—and that’s as it should be. One needs to learn the techniques well before one can have any hope of applying them in a quasi-competitive / competitive environment effectively. Usually the emphasis for beginners will be on getting the basic mechanics down, and intermediate students will spend more time pumping up the power and working on application.

Of the two places I trained, MTI took a like more time and attention with the nitty-gritty details of form and technique, and Tiger gave one a pretty broad experience from the get go, i.e. they got student into light free sparring right away.

What are the trainers like? I’m not just talking about their fight records or whether they were champions or not. Both of the places I trained at had trainers with very impressive fight careers. Also important is the trainer’s disposition. If you’re just trying to get fit and learn a move or two, an intense, scar-faced task-master who works you till you puke and kicks you till you collapse may not be for you. On the other hand, if you’re preparing for a fight or are just deadly serious about your training, the smiling old softy may leave you disheartened. Some students may want someone who is a stickler for detail, and others may want someone who will focus on getting them in better shape. Unfortunately, while you can probably get information about a trainer’s fight history online, you may only be able to get information about their disposition by visiting, trying the place out, or by talking to people who’ve trained there.

It should be noted that a common complaint about many MT gyms is that the trainers don’t seem to care. Students need to understand that they may have to be a little proactive to get the best relationship out of their trainer. Keep in mind that trainers are overwhelmingly extremely driven individuals. Often a trainer has had 200+ fights in their Thai-boxing career, and they still do their own training every single day even if they’re 40 or 50 years old. Plus, they have their own young fighters to train for competition. They will often have a very low interest in–or tolerance for–tourists who just want to half-ass the training as an alternative to jazzercise class. If you want to get their respect and prove worthy of their attention, you’ll need to gut it out day-after-day.

To put this more clearly, don’t whine about the trainer not giving a damn if any of the following apply to you.
-You join laps 20 minutes into class to avoid all the running.
-You leave early so you don’t have to do all those dreadful push-ups at the end of class.
-You take a water break right in the middle of a round of bag work.

Your trainer is someone who has probably:
a. trained until he puked
b. exercised until his muscles literally gave out
c. used the ropes to climb to his feet
If that was you, would you have a lot of enthusiasm for the half-assers?

Keep in mind, the most gregarious trainer may not be the one who’ll give you the best training experience. The guy who doesn’t say a word and seems mean as hell may take the greatest efforts to develop your skills. At MTI there was a trainer who smacked my arm every single time my guard was not perfect.

Location: I’m not just talking about whether it’s beach-adjacent or not. (Some may find nearby beaches or nightlife too tempting or distracting, while others may be into that.) There are a range of services you’ll want ready access to such as laundry, ATM, food of variety, taxi services / scooter rental, the occasional Thai Massage, and massive amounts of bottled water.

MTI was located in a Bangkok suburb. If you don’t mind a good walk, pretty much everything one might need or want was within walking distance via shopping malls, 7-Elevens, and even hardware stores. Tiger was in a less developed area, but it was on a stretch of road that was littered with MT gyms and fitness centers, and so all the essential businesses a foreign student would need were plentiful on that strip of road, and it was a short ride to Phuket Town for those things that long-term visitors might unexpectedly find that they needed.

If you are interested in martial arts, I’d highly recommend putting in some time at a MT gym while you’re visiting Thailand. It’s exhausting, but worth it. I hope this post will give you some food for thought about what to consider in picking a gym.

Chi: The Power of What Isn’t

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Every morning I start my day with chi kung (a.k.a. qi gong), and many days I do tai chi (tai qi.) For those who are unfamiliar, chi is usually defined as “life force” or “life energy.” However, defining chi is neither simple nor will one find a consensus agreement. Some say chi is  “breath,” at which point its existence becomes a much less controversial, but also less explicative, concept. Others would say that chi is much more broadly dispersed than the “living” so “life force” is an understated definition.

Chi Kung are exercises combining breathing, movement, meditation, visualization, and self-massage that are used to keep one healthy. Because yoga also contains these components (e.g. breathing, movement, and meditation; though with very different specifics) some have even been known to call chi kung “Taoist yoga.” The idea behind these exercises is that chi is lost through living (some activities more than others), and can become blocked in the channels through which it is believed to move. Various exercises are used to replenish and ensure healthy circulation of the chi. Tai chi is a series of martial arts forms that are also considered to have the effect of replenishing and / or enhancing chi.

Two questions may leap to mind, especially among those who know me as a skeptic. First, do you believe in chi–despite the lack of evidence that it exists? (When I mention this lack of evidence, I am obviously not defining chi as breath or bodily fluids, in which case the most rabid skeptic would have to acknowledge its existence. However, then an entirely different set of questions is raised about the vast and complicated nature of chi kung exercises needed to circulate oxygen, which travels through blood vessels and not through channels or meridians. In other words, there’s no reason not to abandon a lot of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) / Taoist conceptions of health if one considers a narrow definition of chi.) Second, if you don’t have any reason to believe that chi is a real thing, why bother with the exercises?

First, no, I don’t believe in chi as a substance or physical entity in the way that your average Taoist priest does. I don’t mock or ridicule those who do, and I acknowledge it could always turn out that they were right and I was wrong and that my current state of ignorance combined with an incorrect deference to Occam’s Razor led me astray.

However, I have a pretty high standard for believing a person, place, or thing exists. I need to be able to observe it.  If I can’t perceive it directly, but there is some indirect sign it exists, then that indirect sign needs to be the simplest possible explanation I can imagine given my current state of knowledge. (Yes, I realize that Occam’s Razor isn’t a law, it can always be that an unlikely explanation is the correct explanation. I also know the raft of indirect signs of chi, and, yes, I’m saying I can imagine simpler explanations than an energy source that is immeasurable but powerful enough have bodily effects.) While I don’t believe in chi (or meridians, or the yet undiscovered organ called the “triple heater”) as physical things, I do believe in conceptual chi which is an object of visualization.

Moving on to the second question, I practice these exercises because they make me healthier.

This, of course, raises another question, “How can these exercises be effective if chi is not real?”

Now I have to go Socratic on my hypothetical questioner. The Socratic dialogue goes like this:

S: Have you ever been to a scary movie?

A: Of course, I have. What kind of a troll has never seen a scary movie?

S: I’m Socrates. I’ll ask the damned questions around here, thank you very kindly.

So while you were watching said movies, did you ever get startled? That is, did your pulse ever pound a bit harder; did you ever take a gasping breath; did your hands ever grip the armrest with white knuckles; or did you ever get butterflies in your stomach?

A: Of course, that’s part of the horror movie watching experience.

S: So, then, you were under the impression that the events you were watching were actually happening, and that the killer might come out into the theater after you at any moment?

A: No, of course not. Don’t be absurd!

S: And yet this thing that was not real–that was just symbolic or conceptual–had actual physiological effects?

[At this point Socrates breaks into his superiority dance.]

I think visualizing chi flow has positive benefits both mentally and physically. The mental benefits may be clear. The physical benefits result from putting oneself in the moment and conducting activities (deep breathing and movement) that help one de-stress. This process of de-stressing helps one to be healthier. Does it matter that one does the exercises as they have been handed down from ancient China? Probably not, but I believe that trial and error (even without complete information about anatomy and physiology) yield some impressive results. Of course, there are many other systems (e.g. yoga) that can work equal wonders using an approach that is quite different in its detail. (I also don’t believe in Chakras, but can imagine great benefits from behaving as if they exist.)

MindOverMedicineI just started reading a book by a medical doctor named Lissa Rankin. Rankin’s book, entitled Mind Over Medicine, presents evidence from a large body of scientific literature suggesting the mind often plays a major role in wellness by way of mechanisms that aren’t yet fully understood, but which defy the traditional view of Western medicine.

Rankin was intrigued by the vast number of anecdotal cases of what doctors call “spontaneous remissions.” Spontaneous remissions are when a patient becomes healthy in a way that defies explanation (i.e. they had no treatment, they had insufficient treatment, and they had an illness for with the body’s immune system is normally believed incapable of doing the job on its own.) She wasn’t satisfied with these one-off stories involving placebos, fake surgeries, busted radiology equipment, faith healing, etc, but rather wanted to see what the scientific literature contained by way of scientific double-blind studies on the subject.

She found there was evidence to support mind over matter when it came to illness, and that there was a fledgling explanatory literature. She also learned that while there was a large database of spontaneous remissions, there had not yet been an attempt to determine whether there were common characteristics of those who showed the “placebo effect” (getting well while being in the placebo group of a double-blind study) or other spontaneous remissions.

My point is that there is good reason for skeptics to consider that there may be a lot more to health and well-being than our current paradigm suggests.

BOOK REVIEW: Living Your Yoga by Judith Hanson Lasater

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Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday LifeLiving Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life by Judith Hanson Lasater

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

If you’re the average joe, you probably think of yoga as a series of stretchy postures–many or most of which seem physically impossible for a run-of-the-mill human. If you’re a little more sophisticated on the subject–perhaps you’ve even done a few yoga classes–you realize that breathing exercises (pranayama) and meditation (dhyana) are also an essential part of the practice. However, if you’re hardcore, you realize that there is an entire moral, ethical, spiritual, and philosophical approach to life embodied in yoga.

Lasater’s book is aimed at the latter group or people who plan to one day be in that group. You will not find out how to do a single posture (asana), and you won’t learn how to do breathing exercises or meditation. So, the book might sound like one of those navel-gazing, pie-in-the-sky, philosophical tomes. But it’s not. On the contrary, the chapters are short and readable, and each one ends with exercises to put that chapter’s lesson into practice. Now, it probably sounds more like a how-to workbook. It is, but the exercises can only be carried out in everyday life.

Admittedly, I don’t know that much about yoga, but I suspect such a book is much-needed. I do know that in the martial arts there is also a rich and well-defined moral, philosophical, and–for lack of a better term–spiritual component, and that it gets lost much of the time by a large percentage of students as soon as they step out the door of the dōjō. I suspect this is true of yoga practitioners as well. I imagine that as yoga has spread globally many of the less visible and tangible aspects of the system get left behind. I know this happens in the realm of martial arts–sometimes these elements even get lost in the homeland. It’s a natural side-effect of busy lives; people take on what they can grasp and don’t go looking for the rest.

Living Your Yoga is divided into three parts of seven chapters each (21 chapters in total.) The social circle widens as one goes through the parts. Part I deals with the yoga practitioner as an individual. Part II considers the practitioner’s relationships with others in their immediate domain–family, friends, co-workers, etc. The final part looks at the practitioner in the global context.

Each chapter focuses on a particular virtue or vice and how to cultivate it or mitigate against it, respectively. All of the chapters begin with a quote, most from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or the Bhagavad Gita, then there is the body of the chapter, followed by a practice on that particular theme, supplementary practices, and a few mantras.

The chapters in the first part are: spiritual seeking, discipline, letting go, self-judgment, faith, perspective, and courage. The second part deals with compassion, control, fear, patience, attachment / aversion, suffering, and impermanence. And the final part considers greed, service, connection, truth, success, nonviolence, and love.

While I suggested this book is for the hardcore yogi/yogini, it has value for a more general readership than that. It’s really for anybody interested in working on self-improvement on a daily basis, as opposed to those who restrict their development pursuits to inside the yoga studio (or dōjō or ashram.) The advice is sound, regardless of whether one ever practices an asana or not.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Book of Massage by Lucinda Lidell

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The Book of Massage: The Complete Step-By-Step Guide to Eastern and Western TechniquesThe Book of Massage: The Complete Step-By-Step Guide to Eastern and Western Techniques by Lucy Lidell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

I picked up this book because I recently began studying Thai Yoga Bodywork (TYB.) While The Book of Massage doesn’t specifically deal with Thai massage, as a neophyte, I figured some general reading was in order, and there aren’t a lot of widely available books that deal with Thai massage specifically (at least not where I currently reside.)My first testimonial of this book is that I looked through over a dozen books on massage at my local bookstore, and this is the one with which I walked home.

I found Lidell’s book to be a valuable resource. The book covers three approaches to massage: oil massage, shiatsu, and reflexology. As the subtitle suggests, this book addresses both Eastern and Western approaches to massage. The section labeled simply “Massage” is one that deals largely in the Western approach, as it’s suggestive of the Swedish style of massage. This involves oil, no / few clothes on the recipient, and a variety of strokes that are delivered over relatively broad areas (as opposed to the deeper acupressure approach of the latter methods.) The oil massage chapter begins with an overview including what type of oil to use and the basic strokes, and then provides a sequence before delving into specific techniques for various body parts or groups of body parts.

Shiatsu is a Japanese form of massage that is based on the concepts of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM.) I found this style to be much closer to what I’ve learned in TYB. Like TYB, both patient and recipient are clothed, there is no oil, acupressure is the norm, it requires no table, and there is a match up between what are called “energy lines” in TYB and “meridians” in Shiatsu. Shiatsu even employs similar stretching techniques to those that are the hallmark of TYB. I can imagine these systems having a common ancestral art.

The order of the shiatsu chapter is basically the same as the chapter on Massage. First, there’s necessary background information. This consists of a couple of pages on the basic Taoist concepts on which TCM is based (e.g. Chi, Yin & Yang, and the five elements) and related vocabulary like “tsubo” (pressure points) and meridians. The section then goes on to address basics of posture and bodily tools (palms, thumbs, elbows, knees, etc.), the sequence of the massage, and then the specifics of various body parts.

Reflexology massages only the feet and hands in the belief that points on these appendages map to other parts of the body. In other words, practitioners believe one can increase wellness throughout the body by working points on only the feet or hands. It’s said that the roots of reflexology may be ancient and that it may have been practiced in Egypt in 2300BC, but the modern school was developed by an American physician in the early 20th century. TYB does borrow from reflexology (though not necessarily the modern form of it), so some of this was also similar to what I learned in TYB. Again, the order of this section went from the generic information one needs toward the specifics of how to apply a given technique on a particular part of the foot or hand.

In addition to the three core sections, there were chapters before and after that provide the reader with useful information. Some of this was banal but obligatory (e.g. a brief history of massage and a discussion of the importance of touch among the human species), but some of it was essential practical information such as how to create the proper environment and how to center oneself before delivering a massage. There was also information that will be useful for some about massages involving babies, expectant mothers, the elderly, athletes, and oneself.

Perhaps the most beneficial of the “supplementary” chapters was one that dealt with the subject of how to read bodies. This may seem like an odd topic. However, it’s useful to be able to recognize where an individual holds his tension or where her posture is off–a problem that can create many muscular difficulties. There’s a short overview of anatomy, which I found useful, and a shorter overview of “chakras and auras,” which I personally didn’t find useful but can see where others might.

There are several strengths and relatively few weaknesses to this book. I found the organization to be logical. The graphics are a combination of photos and line drawings, and they work well together. I thought it was great that the author explained that Shiatsu is to be done in comfortable, loose-fitting clothing and that the only reason the graphics display the masseuse in a skin-tight body suit was so that the baggy clothing wouldn’t inhibit the reader’s view. Also, I found the written descriptions worked well with the graphics. One often needs a written cue as to where to find a certain point or line, and just showing it in a picture can be misleading given the wide variety of body types as well as the granularity of the graphic in contrast to the specificity of a point one may need to hit.

I suppose I should warn the easily mortified and / or very religious that there are full and partial frontal nude photographs in the section on oil massage. [I doubt such people are a major demographic for giving or receiving massage, but one never knows.]

I don’t have a lot of complaints. As it’s set up like a workbook, a spiral binding might have been nice, but I recognize the huge challenges of that. Plus, I’m not certain that one can or should learn massage from a book. Rather one should look at it as information to support study with a skilled teacher–or to experiment with once one has already developed some skill. The sections early and late in the book that talk about the importance of human touch didn’t add much, but they were also brief.

If you’re looking for a book on massage that covers a broad set of bases, but yet gives adequate detail for learning, I think this book is a good choice. I’d say it piqued my interest in learning Shiatsu.

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BOOK REVIEW: Pocket Guide to Hatha Yoga by Michele Picozzi

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Pocket Guide to Hatha Yoga (The Crossing Press Pocket Series) (The Crossing Press Pocket Series)Pocket Guide to Hatha Yoga (The Crossing Press Pocket Series) by Michele Picozzi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Having moved to India, I’ve been wanting to take advantage of the wealth of expertise in yoga. However, part of the problem is that there is such a wealth of knowledge. There are many different schools, each with different approaches and focal points, and each of those with separate branches. So I began, as I often do, among the shelves of one of my local bookstores. (Yes, here in India, we still have local bookstores [plural emphasis intended.])

That is where I picked up Michele Picozzi’s Pocket Guide to Hatha Yoga. A slight book of only about 100 pages, this guide serves as a sort of “Yoga for Dummies.” (I’m aware that there is a book by that title, but it’s probably not as concise.) Despite a mild bias against learning about yoga from Westerners (what’s the point of being in India–yes, I realize it’s irrational), I picked up this thin guide because it was only 70 rupees (less than $1 US), and I like the way it was organized.

It begins with a quick overview of the many schools of yoga. Next, it does the same for the many branches of Hatha yoga–which by all accounts seems to be the most popular school. I found this very helpful. The book doesn’t get bogged down in the minutiae, but rather presents a short paragraph hitting the highlights that differentiate one sect from another.

Then the book gets to the meat of the subject (my apologies to vegetarians for that analogy.) It gives helpful tips for one who has never been in a yoga studio before. Then it has chapters on postures (asana), breathing exercises (pranayama), and meditation (dhyana.)We learn that these are but three of yoga’s 8-fold path (not to be confused with Buddhism’s 8-fold path.) For the neophyte, it may be news to learn that there is more to yoga than just bendy poses.

The last chapter deals with basics of a yogic/ayurvedic diet. Here I learned that the Dalai Lama isn’t a vegetarian, among many more important advice about how and what yogis and yoginis should eat.

There are appendices containing line drawings of about 45 of the most fundamental asanas (all of the graphics in the book are line drawings), a glossary, and a list of references.

If you are brand new to yoga, I would recommend this book. You can get it through Amazon for only a little more that 70 Rupees.

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