Yoga Bodies: Real People, Real Stories, & the Power of Transformation

This is a beautiful book--it's visually and verbally stunning. The photographs are riveting, the kind I find myself returning to over and over. Each two-page layout features a photo of a different yoga practitioner and a different pose. The words are in the voice of each featured individual, and we hear an amazing variety of stories, each compelling and moving in a different way. Some brought me to tears. As someone with multiple health problems, I was especially moved by Marsha's story. She had bone cancer as a child, and one leg was amputated above the knee. Aggressive chemo eventually led to kidney failure, dialysis, a transplant. In her photo, Marsha is in tree pose looking gorgeous,confident, balanced, muscular. And her story ends like this: "Everybody has their story. Everybody has their losses. We've all had something brutally cut off from us in some way. We all have to go through that process of recovery." And in their diffferent ways, each person featured in this book illustrates that point. Obviously, this book will appeal to yoga practitioners, but it's really a book about a fascinating variety of human quests, with yoga as a unifying theme. This is a book I will be returning to, dipping back into it whenever I need some inspiration.

Yoga, is acceptance. It is love, it is greater sense of awareness of who we are as humans. The human heart is the most strongest, most beautiful powerful weapon we have. It is captured in this book, I shed a couple of tears, some laughs, and just a sense of pride to be a human being.

Not what I expected. Some didn't even do yoga and the Chad guy seems to have anger issues...I was hoping for more info about Yoga. I don't care about strangers sorry

Jim is our friend he is in this book. My husband meet him at Michigan State, and they formed a life long friendship. Just read what Jim has to say and you will see why we admire him so much. You will enjoy this book, even if you do not know anyone in the book.

I bought 2 of these books, one for my 84 year old yoga teacher, and one for myself. When I got it, I sat down in the evening, and read all the stories. I just love this book, and so does my teacher.

Great cocktail table book

I just love how the yogis in the book are presented. I follow some yoga pages on instagram but I am tired of those pictures focusing only on the physical aspect of yoga, and those skinny girls contorted into impossible poses.Some yogis here chose a simple asana, and some more advanced. What does matter is how the asana express themselves.You cannot tell who of them are yoga teachers, who are long practitioners and who are newbies, if they're very flexible or not. It's so refreshing to read about people that do yoga without classifying them. In the book you can find some reflections and insights, under the name of the yogi. I really love those personal stories about what brought them to yoga, how yoga changed them, how they see the meaning of their practice, and a lot more.I really enjoyed reading the book and contemplating this beautiful photos. This book is a real feast for the soul:)

I got this as a gift but will have to get one for myself as well! I love the pictures and stories that I saw.

Really happy with this book. Inspirational and fun to read.