Yoga Zone Yoga for Life: An Intermediate Guide to Health, Fitness, and Relaxation

According to yoga master Finger, the trend-chasing public isn't""getting"" what yoga truly is. Typical yoga classes that encompass poses (asanas) and breathwork (pranayama) are merely steps along the way to the real goal, he argues, which is living a life of""deepened awareness"" in which people realize their""potential to connect to the higher universal intelligence."" Yoga students looking for a book of increasingly challenging asanas should therefore look elsewhere; while this volume includes two separate series of restorative poses, it focuses much more on the meditative nature of yoga. The photos of poses are even interspersed with frequent quotations from the classic yoga philosophy book, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Finger, who has been practicing yoga for more than 20 years, stresses that""asanas are not exercises that need to be perfected. They are tools"" for finding the areas in one's body that hold the most tension. Not only will one's body be less stressed from practicing yoga, Finger says, but one's relationships will also subsequently improve, as one becomes more in touch with oneself, as""you fine-tune your awareness of your emotional connection to others."" Finger bogs down the book a bit with his inclusion of slightly muddy explanations of the body's chakras and koshas (the""five elements of the self""). But overall, yoga enthusiasts who want to take their practice one step further will do well to start with this book.