Your Spine, Your Yoga: Developing Stability and Mobility for Your Spine

Your Spine, Your Yoga is arguably the first book that looks at the spine from
both the Western anatomical/biomechanical point
of view and the modern yoga perspective.

It is filled with detail, discussion, illustrations, and practical
advice for spines of all types. This emphasis on variety is welcome and necessary: no two spines are exactly
alike, and no two people have the same biology and biography. What your spine is able to do may be vastly
different from what other yoga students' or teachers' spines can do.

The human spine is unique in its
structure and function. Primarily, it provides stability through the core of our body, allowing forces
to be transmitted from the upper body (arms and shoulders) to the lower body (pelvis and legs) and
vice versa. Secondarily, the spine allows tremendous range of movement. Unfortunately, in modern yoga
practice we find the primacy of these two functions reversed, with flexibility prized over stability.
This focus on spinal mobility comes at a grave cost to many students. Stability is lost, and when that
happens, dysfunction and pain often follow.

Just as all tissues and areas of the body need a healthy
amount of stress to regain and maintain optimal health, so too our spine needs the appropriate levels
of stress to remain functional throughout our lives. How we choose to exercise the spine makes a
difference, though. Knowing the way the spine is built, specifically, how your spine is built, will
allow you to tailor your exercises wisely to match your goals.

Your Spine, Your Yoga is the second
book in the Your Body, Your Yoga series and focuses on the axial body―the core, from the sacral complex,
which includes the pelvis, sacrum, and sacroiliac joint, through the lumbar and thoracic segments of
the spine, to the cervical complex, which includes the neck and head. The structural components of
each segment are examined: from the bones, to the joints, ligaments, fascia, tendons, muscles, and
even the neurological and blood systems. The range and implications of human variations are presented,
as well as the ways these variations may affect individual yoga practices. The sources of restrictions
to movement are investigated through answering the question "What Stops Me?" The answers presented
run through a spectrum, beginning with various types of tensile resistance to three kinds of compressive
resistance.

Whether the reader is a novice to yoga, anatomy, or both, or a seasoned practitioner with
an in-depth knowledge in these fields, this book will be valuable. For the novice, there are easily
understood illustrations and photographs, as well as sidebars highlighting the most important topics.
For the anatomy geek, other sidebars focus on the complexity of the topic, with hundreds of references
provided for further investigation. For the yoga teacher, sidebars suggest how to bring this knowledge
into the classroom. Your Spine, Your Yoga can be used as a resource when specific questions arise,
as a textbook to be studied in detail, or as a fascinating coffee-table book to be browsed at leisure
for topics of current interest.

Author: Bernie Clark
Publisher: Wild Strawberry Productions
Published: 11/01/2018
Pages: 325
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.15lbs
Size: 10.90h x 8.40w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780968766552

About the Author
Clark, Bernie: - Bernie Clark author of the best selling The Complete Guide to Yin Yoga, has had a passion for science, health, sports and spirituality since childhood. He has a degree in science from the University of Waterloo and spent over 25 years as a senior executive in the high-tech/space industry. Bernie has been investigating the path of meditation for over three decades and began teaching yoga and meditation in 1998. He conducts yoga teacher trainings several times a year and aims to build bridges between the experiences of yoga and the understandings of modern science. He is creator of the YinYoga.com website. Other books written by Bernie include Your Body, Your Yoga; From the Gita to the Grail: Exploring Yoga Stories & Western Myths, as well as YinSights. Bernie lives, teaches and offers workshops in Vancouver, Canada.McGill, Stuart: - Dr. Stuart McGill is Professor Emeritus after 32 years at the University of Waterloo where he had a laboratory/clinic that explored low back pain, rehabilitation and performance enhancement. He has been the author of over 240 medical and scientific journal papers. This work has received several international awards including the "Volvo Bioengineering Award for Low Back Pain Research". As a consultant, he has provided expertise on low back injury to various government agencies, many corporations and legal firms and professional/international athletes and teams world wide. He is regularly referred special and challenging patient cases from the international medical community for opinion. He has authored four books: "Gift of Injury" with Brian Carroll; "Back Mechanic" targeting the lay public with back pain; "Low Back Disorders: Evidence Based Prevention and Rehabilitation" designed for clinicians assessing and treating patients; and "Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance" targeting coaches and trainers.McCall, Timothy: - Timothy McCall, MD is a board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, and the author of two books, Examining Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care (Citadel Press) and Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health and Healing (Bantam). He is co-editor of the first medical textbook on yoga therapy, The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care (Handspring Publishing, 2016). He practiced medicine for more than 10 years in the Boston area before devoting himself full-time to investigating and teaching yoga therapy. Certified as a yoga therapist by the International Association of Yoga Therapists, he is the Founder/Director of Yoga As Medicine Seminars and Teacher Trainings and, until 2016, co-directed a yoga therapy center just outside of New York City.