Your Spine, Your Yoga is arguably the first book that looks at the spine from
both the Western anatomical/biomechanical point
of view and the modern yoga perspective.
It is filled with detail, discussion, illustrations, and practical
advice for spines of all types. This emphasis on variety is welcome and necessary: no two spines are exactly
alike, and no two people have the same biology and biography. What your spine is able to do may be vastly
different from what other yoga students’ or teachers’ spines can do.
The human spine is unique in its
structure and function. Primarily, it provides stability through the core of our body, allowing forces
to be transmitted from the upper body (arms and shoulders) to the lower body (pelvis and legs) and
vice versa. Secondarily, the spine allows tremendous range of movement. Unfortunately, in modern yoga
practice we find the primacy of these two functions reversed, with flexibility prized over stability.
This focus on spinal mobility comes at a grave cost to many students. Stability is lost, and when that
happens, dysfunction and pain often follow.
Just as all tissues and areas of the body need a healthy
amount of stress to regain and maintain optimal health, so too our spine needs the appropriate levels
of stress to remain functional throughout our lives. How we choose to exercise the spine makes a
difference, though. Knowing the way the spine is built, specifically, how your spine is built, will
allow you to tailor your exercises wisely to match your goals.
Your Spine, Your Yoga is the second
book in the Your Body, Your Yoga series and focuses on the axial body―the core, from the sacral complex,
which includes the pelvis, sacrum, and sacroiliac joint, through the lumbar and thoracic segments of
the spine, to the cervical complex, which includes the neck and head. The structural components of
each segment are examined: from the bones, to the joints, ligaments, fascia, tendons, muscles, and
even the neurological and blood systems. The range and implications of human variations are presented,
as well as the ways these variations may affect individual yoga practices. The sources of restrictions
to movement are investigated through answering the question “What Stops Me?” The answers presented
run through a spectrum, beginning with various types of tensile resistance to three kinds of compressive
resistance.
Whether the reader is a novice to yoga, anatomy, or both, or a seasoned practitioner with
an in-depth knowledge in these fields, this book will be valuable. For the novice, there are easily
understood illustrations and photographs, as well as sidebars highlighting the most important topics.
For the anatomy geek, other sidebars focus on the complexity of the topic, with hundreds of references
provided for further investigation. For the yoga teacher, sidebars suggest how to bring this knowledge
into the classroom. Your Spine, 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.
