Your Upper Body, Your Yoga

Your Upper Body, Your Yoga is the highly anticipated final book of the Your Body, Your Yoga trilogy— the definitive investigation of how your uniqueness affects your movements, postures, and your yoga.

This remarkable trilogy examines the variations of human anatomy and their impact on the body's biomechanics. Used as a standard text for many yoga teacher training programmes, it provides yoga students and teachers with a system for exploring which asanas are possible and sensible and which postures should be left alone. This third book in the series focuses on the upper body: the shoulder complex, arms, and hands. But there is more. This final book also includes explorations of how asymmetries and proportions affect our practice.

You are unique. No one else in this whole world has your biology or biography. Why suppose that your yoga practice should be, or even could be, the same as anyone else's? How far apart should your hands be in Down Dog? Where should they be pointing? Should you avoid hyperextension of the elbows? Is hyperflexion of the shoulders safe? The answer is—it depends! Your Upper Body, Your Yoga examines the upper body from both the Western anatomical/biomechanical perspective and the modern yoga perspective. It is filled with detail, discussion, illustrations, and practical advice for bodies of all types.

Proportions and asymmetries vary greatly from person to person. The implications for a yoga practice—whether these asymmetries need to be changed, accommodated, or simply accepted—are examined alongside variability in our proportions and their effect on postures.

Whether the reader is a novice to yoga and anatomy or a seasoned practitioner with an in-depth knowledge, this book will be valuable. For the novice, it includes easily understood illustrations and photographs, as well as sidebars highlighting the most important topics. For the anatomy specialists, other sidebars delve into the complexity of the topic, with hundreds of references provided for further investigation. For the yoga teacher, additional sidebars suggest ways to bring this knowledge into the classroom. Your Upper Body, Your Yoga can be used as a resource when specific questions arise, as a textbook to be studied in detail, or as a fascinating coffee-table book to be browsed at leisure for topics of current interest.