Your Body, Your Yoga: Learn Alignment Cues That Are Skillful, Safe, and Best Suited To You

If you’re a yoga teacher, this book truly is a gem!! Another excellently written yoga book by the amazing Bernie Clark. He clearly, yet in great detail, discusses adapting yoga asanas based on functional anatomy. Detailed illustrations are included to enhance the text. Such an excellent wealth of yogic knowledge!! I highly recommend!!

Love the level of details explained in easy language, the summary for yoga teachers, and the illustrations. Is not a book to read cover to cover, but after of years of owning one I keep coming back for specific sections and details

I just love the book, and I have liked all Bernie’s book so far! Bernie just knows how to break down complicated information of Yoga & Anatomy into digestible chunks. He makes it very doable, even for Yoga students, to understand all the things we need to know about our Body and about Yoga. He teaches us that we need to look for a style of Yoga that suits our own body so that is actually heals us! Bernie, thank you for taking the effort of putting your knowledge down on paper, so we can ALL have the privilege of using it in our Yoga practice and classes! A BIG thank you from a Dutch Yoga teacher; Marianne de Kuyper.

In light of the growing popularity of yoga and the rise of injuries in the yoga room, this book couldn't have arrived at a better time. It's not an anatomy atlas as most yoga anatomy books are, but rather a comprehensive examination of how our structural anatomy *works* and how our unique variations impact a practice. He provides invaluable advice for ascertaining in your own body what feels appropriate and even how to spot trouble in your students. I recently taught an anatomy intensive based in large part on my studies with Bernie's teacher Paul Grilley and the information provided in this book. The students, mostly teachers, were completely blown away as so much of this material isn't covered in a typical yoga TT. Indeed, I think much of the information would be completely new to even long-time teachers. My copy is already well worn as I keep going back to it again and again. While Bernie does a fantastic job of keeping the material readable, it's very dense. I think this book would be a bit over the head of a lot of average yoga practitioners who don't already have an inner body geek. But that shouldn't stop anyone serious about practicing for life to give it a go. I can't wait until the other volumes arrive.

Hands down, THIS is the most significant book on the execution of yoga postures in print. Many years ago, Paul Grilley, quietly began introducing the implications of skeletal variation to the yoga world. In many ways, this was a Copernican Revolution, upending a deeply entrenched cognitive bias that said the correctness and safety of a yoga posture could be determined by the trained eye of a teacher. The assumption within this paradigm was simply that everyone had the same skeleton, and that any limitation in a yogi's capacity to achieve or execute a posture was due to 'tightness' in their soft tissues. Well, not so fast. In exposing the truth of skeletal variation and its implications, we now know, thanks to Paul's early work, that soft tissue tension is only half the story. The shape, orientation, length, and angle of your bones also influences how and to what degree you can move. In the wake of this understanding, a new paradigm of Functional Alignment has emerged, soon - hopefully - to obviate the pernicious legacy of Aesthetic Alignment. Functional Alignment is based on the principle of aligning the body in a way that is functionally optimal to the unique conditions of the individual. Aesthetic Alignment is based on the principle of organizing the body in ways that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye (right angles, parallel lines). Bernie Clark's book, "Your Body, Your Yoga," is the proverbial Bible of this new movement, and the full-throated culmination of Grilley's pioneering work. Clark details in systematic exactitude how and why physical variation will influence how somebody will be able to do or NOT do a particular asana in a given way. But yogis be warned: inevitably, learning and applying the information contained within this book will require you to question and, likely, unlearn much of what you were taught during your previous yoga training. This will not be comfortable. The struggle to integrate the insights of this book will not be easy. Cherished teaching cues will be exposed for the imperfect approximations that they are. But the rewards are equally rich. Once integrated, you will be able to practice and teach in a significantly more sophisticated and nuanced way. And as a teacher you will become less an authority on what the student should LOOK LIKE while doing yoga and more of a collaborative facilitator, coaching your students to make wiser choices for themselves with regards to what alignment considerations make most sense. In my Yin Yoga teacher trainings, "Your Body, Your Yoga" is the core text for unlocking the complexity of human variation. Thank you, Bernie Clark, for your work and the brilliant clarity by which you convey it.

This is an incredibly well researched book. It contains every bit of anatomy/physiology information that a yogi could want or need. To be honest it was so advanced that it was a bit over my head for a general practitioner of yoga. But if you are well versed and a teacher, say, it would be so helpful. Teachers are given ways to assess student's individual anatomy variations: one "cue" does not fit all!

YTT scratches the surface of anatomy. Yoga is a practice that incorporates body movement. Not every body is the same as the title implies. If you are a yoga teacher this book is invaluable.

I have taught the anatomy sections of yoga teacher trainings for many years, often as a guest instructor, and I've never found a book that I thought was an ideal text for students/new teachers until this book. This book is exceptionally well-written in three ways: it is easy to read, using language that is approachable and easily understandable by a wide range of readers, it is evidence-based with clear descriptions about how and why each assertion is reasonable (with citations), and the text is enjoyable, with personality and character. Bernie Clark has a way of describing the facts of anatomy, which are rarely cut and dry, without inventing a host of new vocabulary that prevents the reader from cross-referencing or additional reading. He draws together many different traditions and has quite clearly outlined what I think is most essential for new teachers and practitioners to understand about their bodies. I highly recommend any yogi and every yoga instructor read this book.

Testo molto ben fatto, dettagliato e al tempo stesso di facile comprensione, che illustra molto chiaramente i principi dell'anatomia variabile.

Excellent. I am 70 years old and only started to exercise five years ago. Part of this journey has been learning more about muscles and bones. Another part has been a practice that involves different types of exercise, from weight training, through swimming, pilates and yoga. I started with simpler anatomy books and apps. This is the latest and most complex book I am using in this journey . . . and it is well worth it. I have learned to listen to my body (thanks to the confidence my trainer has given me). This book is now helping me think through whether the problems I am now trying to solve are a consequence of not yet having enough muscular strength or are specific to my own body's structure. (The simpler books don't really address this question.) This book is the first of two volumes, and only covers up to your waist (feet, knees, hips). Volume 2, I understand completes the picture and I will look forward to using it in future as well. The book is aimed at teachers, not students, so not for those who are put off by its technical precision, or who are just beginning their personal practice. The illustrations carry the argument, in any case.

Clear, safe alignment cues tailored to your unique body.

Bernie Clark's book abounds of information and anatomic detail. Yet his message or ultimate alignment cue is seemingly simple: sense your edge, play your edge and stop when you sense it is going too far ... because every body is different and sometimes its your bones that are the final limit. Literally. This juxtaposition of hard anatomic facts and a "trust your sensations" approach may appear contradictory, but it actually makes full sense. For me personally, it made my attitude towards my yoga a little more relaxed (without taking away a "healthy" ambition). Highly recommended!

This book carefully and comprehensively sets out what limits us anatomically from performing any particular asana. His detailed knowledge of anatomy helps the yoga teacher and student from injuring himself or herself and setting realistic goals for the practice of asana. I would rate this book as the most important work of the physical practice of yoga since Light on Yoga was published in 1966