New Brain Food!

I'm very excited because a new book arrived at my doorstep today: Iyengar Yoga for Motherhood. I've been heavily anticipating this book's arrival for a couple of weeks now. As a 200 hour certified yoga teacher, I've had some training in the basics of pre & postnatal yoga. Yet, this really only covered some general rules of thumb about what to teach (and avoid teaching) when a pregnant woman shows up in a regular asana class. For example, standing poses are good while backbends and twists are not necessarily best. Or, it's not a good idea to teach kapalabhati but an emphasis on ujjayi breathing is great. These are pretty basic concepts, and have certainly proven valuable to me in my relatively short time as a yoga teacher. However, I've had enough encounters with pregnant women either in my classes or asking me about yoga to become painfully aware of just how infantile my knowledge in this area remains. There is a distinct lack of prenatal yoga on the island for my study purposes, and my personal experience with pregnancy is only through second-hand stories of its trials and triumphs. So, when all else fails, I turn to the internet!

Researching great books for yoga and pregnancy turned up Geeta Iyengar's book. Seeing as how I cherish her father's books as indispensable to my daily practice, I figured her book would be a pretty good starting point in this quest. So far, it looks like I scored a winner with this selection. First, it's huge! It's a very large hardcover book, numbering 443 pages from cover to cover. Topics include: yoga & Ayurvedic philosophy, preparation for pregnancy, asana descriptions & sequences for all levels and stages of pregnancy, pranayama, post-delivery practices, anatomy, & Ayurvedic health tips, including menus & massage. The photographic illustrations are abundant & clear. The size of the book and illustrations make it easy to practice alongside. In short, the mountain of information in this manual constitutes a full-length course in and of itself. It's going to take me some time to absorb it all. As a teacher, I'm incredibly pleased with this book as a reference guide to assist me in learning more about yoga for those beautiful pregnant women in my life and who come to my classes. On first glance alone, I can highly recommend this book for anyone with a curiosity or need for more in-depth information about yoga & pregnancy. Until next time...

NAMASTE!