Basic Yoga Postures and Series In A Day For Dummies (eBook)

Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D. (Saskatchewan, Canada) has written more than 30 books on such topics as yoga, tantra, and spiritual transcendence. Larry Payne, Ph.D. (Los Angeles, CA) is an internationally respected Yoga teacher and workshop leader.

Introduction 1

What You Can Do In A Day 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 2

Chapter 1: The Ins and Outs of Yoga and Breathing 3

A Brief Introduction to Yoga 4

Breathing Your Way to Good Health 5

Taking high-quality breaths 6

Relaxing with a couple of deep breaths 7

Practicing safe yogic breathing 7

Reaping the benefits of yogic breathing 8

Breathing through your nose (most of the time) 9

What if I can't breathe through my nose? 9

How about breathing through my nose all the time? 9

The Mechanics of Yogic Breathing 10

Appreciating the complete yogic breath 11

Belly breathing 11

Belly-to-chest breathing 12

Chest-to-belly breathing 13

Starting out with focus breathing 15

Realizing the power of a pause 16

Partners in Yoga: Breath and Postural Movement 16

Chapter 2: Please, Be
Seated 19

Understanding the Philosophy of Yoga Postures 20

Looking at the Many Variations of Sitting 21

Chair-sitting posture 21

The easy posture: Sukhasana 23

The thunderbolt posture: Vajrasana 24

Chapter 3: Standing
Tall 27

Standing Strong 27

Exercising Your Options 28

Mountain posture: Tadasana 29

Standing forward bend: Uttanasana 30

Triangle posture: Utthita trikonasana 32

Warrior I: Vira Bhadrasana I 33

Warrior II: Vira Bhadrasana II 34

Standing spread-legged forward bend: Prasarita pada
uttanasana 36

Downward-facing dog: Adhomukha shvanasana 37

Chapter 4: Steady as a Tree: Mastering Balance
39

Getting to the Roots of the Postures 39

Balancing Postures for Graceful Strength 40

Warrior at the wall: Vira Bhadrasana III variation 41

Balancing cat 42

The tree posture: Vrikshasana 43

The karate kid 44

Standing heel-to-buttock 45

Chapter 5: Dynamic Posture: The Sun Salutation
47

Gliding Through the 7-Step Kneeling Salutation 48

Advancing to the 12-Step Sun Salutation 50

Chapter 6: A Recommended Beginners' Routine
53

Starting Off Slowly and Wisely 53

Trying Out a Fun Beginners' Routine 54

Corpse posture 54

Lying arm raise 55

Knee-to-chest posture 56

Downward-facing dog 56

Child's posture 57

Warrior I 58

Standing forward bend 59

Standing spread-legged forward bend 60

The karate kid 61

Corpse posture redux 62

Chapter 7: Where to Go from
Here 63

Taking Your First Steps 63

Visiting dummiescom 64