Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body.

Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body.

by Jessamyn Stanley
Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body.

Every Body Yoga: Let Go of Fear, Get On the Mat, Love Your Body.

by Jessamyn Stanley

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Overview

From the unforgettable teacher Jessamyn Stanley comes Every Body Yoga, a book that breaks all the stereotypes.

It’s a book of inspiration for beginners of all shapes and sizes: If Jessamyn could transcend these emotional and physical barriers, so can we.

It’s a book for readers already doing yoga, looking to refresh their practice or find new ways to stay motivated.

It’s a how-to book: Here are easy-to-follow directions to 50 basic yoga poses and 10 sequences to practice at home, all photographed in full color.

It’s a book that challenges the larger issues of body acceptance and the meaning of beauty.

Most of all, it’s a book that changes the paradigm, showing us that yoga isn’t about how one looks, but how one feels, with yoga sequences like “I Want to Energize My Spirit,” “I Need to Release Fear,” “I Want to Love Myself.”

Jessamyn Stanley, a yogi who breaks all the stereotypes, has built a life as an internationally recognized yoga teacher and award-winning Instagram star by combining a deep understanding for yoga with a willingness to share her personal struggles in a way that touches everyone who comes to know her. Now she brings her body-positive, emotionally uplifting approach to yoga in a book that will help every reader discover the power of yoga and how to weave it seamlessly into his or her life.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781523500208
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company
Publication date: 04/04/2017
Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
Sales rank: 70,312
File size: 12 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

As an internationally recognized yoga teacher and Instagram star, Jessamyn Stanley conducts yoga workshops across the country, teaching students of all shapes, sizes, and colors how to make yoga a permanent part of their lives. A rising media favorite, Jessamyn has been profiled and featured by a wide range of international and national news outlets, including Good Morning America, New York, Glamour, Shape, Al Jazeera English, the Huffington Post, The Daily Mail,The Sunday Times Style, and People, among others. She won a 2016 Shortie Award (honoring excellence in social media) in the Healthy Living Category. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Read an Excerpt

WHY DID I WRITE THIS BOOK?

In the summer of 2012, I was an unemployed grad-school dropout and relatively new to yoga. I enjoyed going to classes, but like many other yoga students who look “different,” I always left the studio feeling a vague sense of discrimination at the hands of my teachers and fellow students. I was also strapped for cash and could barely afford the occasional drop-in class. So I turned my focus to developing a home practice. I began photographing and documenting my yoga asana practice and posting the shots on Instagram. At the time, Instagram was a fairly new kind of social media, but there was already a small community of yoga teachers and practitioners who were using the app to share their home practices. I quickly found my place in this virtual community and with it, a sense of inclusion and encouragement that I’d never felt in any live yoga class.

That’s when everything changed. I became ravenous for information beyond the physical poses I’d encountered in studio classes. I studied anatomy, the history of yoga, and the evolution of various yoga lineages. I got certified as a yoga instructor. Today, I have the incredible privilege to travel the world teaching the practice I love so much. 

As much as social media has given me, it shouldn’t be the only source of inspiration for people who don’t fit the typical yoga mold. That’s why I wrote this book. Because all yoga bodies deserve to be represented in print, not just those that are slender, female, and white. I wrote this book for every fat person, every old person, and every exceptionally short person.

I wrote it for every person who has called themselves ugly and every person who can’t accept their beauty. I wrote it for every person who is self-conscious about their body.

I wrote it for every human being who struggles to find happiness on a daily basis, and for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by the mere act of being alive. I’ve been there. We all have.

Yoga is for everybody and EVERY BODY. You don’t have to be thin and you don’t have to be fat. You don’t have to be a specific color or commit to a specific diet. You don’t have to earn (or have access to) a certain amount of money. You don’t have to embody anything other than your truest and most honest self in order to practice yoga. You don’t have to omit the sadness, the anger, and all of the other “ugly” emotions that flavor our lives.

You don’t have to be anyone other than yourself.

And I think it’s high time that someone shouted it loud enough so everyone can hear.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

WHY DID I WRITE THIS BOOK?
. . . viii

PART 1: LET’S GET WARMED UP . . . 1
“Hey, Jessamyn, How Do I Start Practicing Yoga?” . . . 3
“Is This a Cult?” . . . 8
The Elephant in the Room . . . 15
Questions Asked by (Literally) Every Beginner Yoga Student . . . 20

PART 2: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? . . . 27
The History of Modern Yoga, in a Nutshell . . . 29
What the Fuck Is the Eight-Limbed Path? . . . 35
Which Yoga Practice Should I Choose? . . . 40
What Should I Buy? . . . 47
Questions Asked by (Literally) Every Beginner Yoga Student . . . 52

PART 3: JESSAMYN’S ABCs OF ASANA . . . 61
Getting Started with Asana . . . 63
The Poses . . . 73
Standing Poses . . . 74
Balance Basics . . . 88
Hamstrings and Core . . 94
Hips . . . 104
Backbends . . . 114
Restore . . . 124
Questions Asked by (Literally) Every Beginner Yoga Student . . . 132

PART 4: OKAY, BUT HOW CAN I DO THIS ON MY OWN? . . . 137
How I Learned My Asana ABCs . . . 139
Bring It On, Bitch . . . 140
Sequence: Sun Salutation A . . . 144
Sequence: Sun Salutation B . . . 148
The Oreo . . . 153
Sequence: I Want to Get Started . . . 158
Jessamyn Stanley, Pre-Teen Beauty Queen . . . 160
Sequence: I Want to Stand Strong  . . . 166
A Chick-fil-A Bandit Walks into Weight Watchers . . . 168
Sequence: I Need to Feel Balanced  . . . 176
Tabor City Funerals . . . 178
Sequence: I Want to See the World from Another Angle  . . . 186
A Yoga Practice Grows in Durham . . . 188
Sequence: I Want to Energize My Spirit . . . 192
Self-Acceptance: The Taboo . . . 194
Sequence: I Need to Release Fear . . . 200
The Scarlet A . . . 202
Sequence: I Need to Chill the F Out . . . 206
One Is the Magic Number . . . 208
Sequence: I Need to Love Myself . . . 212

PART 5: IS IT REALLY THAT SIMPLE? . . . 215
INDEX . . . 220
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . 222
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