Pick Your Yoga Practice - Exploring and Understanding Different Styles of Yoga

In "Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses", Claire Dederer spends a chapter (Pigeon) talking about the challenges of wanting to learn more about yoga and being completely overwhelmed by all the text out there. In her own words:

"One of the problems with yoga was that there was no bible. No urtext. No word of god. Really, this is because yoga is a technique for knowing god, or even becoming god. A technique cannot have a bible. It has, instead, a manual. Or many manuals."

She goes on to tell of the many books she read looking for an understanding of yoga, finishing up with:

"What I took away from my readings was this: I was, according to these scholars, not doing yoga. I was doing asana, and the origins of that were quite suspect."

Oh, how I felt for her! My own experience was one and the same. I started going to yoga classes for the same reason so many of us start - a friend asked me to come with an I liked it so I kept going. It was wonderful and I could quickly tell there was more to it. But where to learn more? A Google search for "yoga" returns 471,000,000 results (as of today). In no time one will, like me, be completely overwhelmed at all the information that seems to have no structure to it and says crazy things about not having sex and not eating meat or drinking wine. Such a turnoff! If only I had started with "Pick Your Yoga Practice", I would have saved months of research and wrong turns.

Meagan McCrary does a wonderful job of organizing thousands of years of knowledge into a quick cheat sheet of yoga. The first three chapters - Yoga Explained, America's Yoga History, and Philosophical Foundations - are worth the purchase alone.Read more ›

Finally! An easily understood resource for teachers and students alike explaining different styles of yoga. Meagan McCrary, certified yoga teacher and journalist, has written a well laid out and thought out guide to the plethora of disciplines in the marketplace today. Eighteen are covered, eight with their own chapters and ten more briefly covered in one chapter. Additionally, she has included history and explanation of the practice of yoga.

Meagan McCrary's writing style is clear and light, while exhibiting authority on her subject. The eight chapters that describe the major disciplines of yoga include and introduction, the gist, and conclusion; within these sections, the masters, trademarks, and other unique viewpoints are introduced and explained. Also, certain important aspects of the discipline are highlighted, which are nice to be able to come back and review.

Agreeing with my fellow reviewer, Victoria Klein, this book made me realize my personal practice and my teaching really draws from many types of practices, not just one. Further to this point, while all of the disciplines want to be unique in their ways, the goal is the same, just delivered in different vehicles. This book has made me appreciate the many teachers and masters who have poured their heart and souls into the transformation of all beings.

I have read many books in the past couple of years on yoga that I have felt are important books to add to the shelves of teachers and students, and this is another one to add to that list. I would recommend this book to studios to have on hand to help guide students who come in with questions too. My hats off to Meagan McCrary for her excellent book!