Yoga

Fülszöveg

YOGA
bj Linda Sparrowe Photographs by David Martinez
Yoga has become a worldwide obsession. Hollywood stars take their personal instructors with them on location; newspapers and magazines hail yoga as the answer to the unrelenting stress in our society; pregnant women wrap their cell phones in their yoga mats and hurry to class. The yoga we practice today bears little resemblance to the yoga that began humbly some 3 ,Loo years ago, but in its rich and varied history, yoga has always evolved to meet the needs of the culture it serves.
This book was conceived as a celebration of yoga, a spiritual tradition at once ancient and transcendently au courant.To the casual observer, yoga is first and foremost a fitness regimen that focuses on stretching. But yoga resonates far more deeply. As David Martinez's exquisite photographs amply demonstrate, the combination of strength and balance the poses require underscores the inherent beauty of the human form. These new and original... Tovább

Fülszöveg

YOGA
bj Linda Sparrowe Photographs by David Martinez
Yoga has become a worldwide obsession. Hollywood stars take their personal instructors with them on location; newspapers and magazines hail yoga as the answer to the unrelenting stress in our society; pregnant women wrap their cell phones in their yoga mats and hurry to class. The yoga we practice today bears little resemblance to the yoga that began humbly some 3 ,Loo years ago, but in its rich and varied history, yoga has always evolved to meet the needs of the culture it serves.
This book was conceived as a celebration of yoga, a spiritual tradition at once ancient and transcendently au courant.To the casual observer, yoga is first and foremost a fitness regimen that focuses on stretching. But yoga resonates far more deeply. As David Martinez's exquisite photographs amply demonstrate, the combination of strength and balance the poses require underscores the inherent beauty of the human form. These new and original photographs capture over 400 asanas, or physical postures. Each pose, be it simple or complex, becomes a work of art, a subtle blending of body, mind, and spirit that is the true meaning of yoga.
Curiously, the physical aspect of yoga so popular today owes as much to the influence of 19th-century British gymnastics, martial arts, and wrestling as it does to the yoga tradition itself. As Linda Sparrowe's accompanying text explains, most of the physical poses on these pages became a part of yoga quite recently, within the last 1 20 years.To set these newcomers within what is an ancient tradition, Sparrowe traces the history of yoga from its humble beginnings in the Indus Valley over three thousand years ago through the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, and Patanjali's Yoga Sutra to its current popularity throughout die West, a popularity fostered by such 20th-century titans as Swami Sivananda Saraswati,T. Krishnamacharya, Pattabhi Jois, Indra Devi, B.K.S. Iyengar, andT.K.V. Desikachar.
Through the long and complex history of yoga certain concepts have always prevailed: the union of opposites; the effect the outside world has on the body; the yearning for and seeking of some form of liberation; and the interest in discovering and attaining one's true Self. Yoga's central meaning, literally "yoke," "union," or "discipline," has remained constant. Today's most popular form of yoga, the practice of the asanas pictured here, appeals at first to our culture's current focus on fitness and appearance. But as practitioners become more adept, the physical stability they attain leads them to a deeper, more spiritual place in their lives, a union of body, mind, and spirit that becomes a powerful means of transformation.
FRONT JACKET: Eka PadaViparita Dandasana (One-
Legged Inverted Staff Pose)
BACK JACKET: Kandasana (Navel Pose) Vissza