Ashtanga Yoga: The Definitive Guide to Therapeutic & Traditional Yoga

I thought it was quite nice and there were some elements of the presentation I liked but I thought it lacked detail and to some degree was a lazy book. I really liked that the people demonstrating the asanas were older householders and some of the information about adjustments and benefits was good but I just felt like it was a book that could have been so much more and I was a little bit disappointed as I think Manju Jois has much more to offer and share about his experience and perspective that people could benefit from.

I love everything about this book. There are lots of books out there that illustrate the Ashtanga series and they are good but this book does that and more. It makes the link between historic yoga texts and what the traditional benefits of the poses are. The authors are masters in their own right and that shows through the careful attention to detail. plus, I love the practice sheets :).

As an Ashtanga practitioner, I find this book very helpful. Yes Ashtanga yoga was designed with a succession of asanas but it is not said that you cannot pick and chose some different asanas and not necessarily in order when you want to work therapeutically. I find the information very refreshing, nice images and well designed. Furthermore it is so well organized with wonderful translation of Sanskrit. The chanting and Pranayama are very well done. And the detachable sheets with all the sequences for primaries and intermediate are certainly helpful for a beginner. Finally, it was very refreshing to see yogis that were not 20 years old. It makes you realize that yoga is accessible to an older generation too. If you had the privilege to work with Manju Jois, you will realize that this book mirrors some of his comments and explanations. Greg Tebb is an amazing teacher and understands the body and most of all, knows to adapt the practice to help his students develop without hurting themselves. He also has a deep knowledge of Sanskrit. I truly recommend the book and hope that you can have the opportunity to study with Greg or Manju one day.

It's one thing to interpret and adapt a method, but quite another to mutilate and garble it. The first is what the authors might possibly have set out to do with their book, the second is what they have certainly accomplished. While some  of the many idiosyncrasies in this book could simply be meant as a display of  the authors’ zeal of busting convention, others appear to be tailored for the comfort of a milk livered clientele who'd like to think of themselves as party animals but can't quite hold their liquor no more. If that was all there was to the book, it wouldn’t be worth the effort of reviewing. What merits a review is that this book calls itself “a ground-breaking guide to Ashtanga yoga” and even “a definitive guide”, yet, the only thing it breaks, deliberately it would seem, and not to use the word butcher, is the vinyasa method designed by Sri K Pattabhi Jois, a name which authors are careful to avoid. Where Pattabhi’s vinyasa method is a meticulously arranged mala, a garland of postures linked by the breath, each motion and each breath accounted for and counted, authors chop it all apart and adorn the pieces with a vinyasa count quite of their own invention. If “misguide” were a noun, this surely would have to be the “definitive misguide to Ashtanga yoga”.

Manju Jois and Greg Tebb have yoga in their blood. They've taught my teachers (and still do), and my teachers teach me. I had the privilege of working with Greg Tebb a couple of weeks ago, and he was amazing. This book is a must for those who want to learn therapeutic yoga to add to their traditional yoga practice. As a teacher, I will definitely be using this book. It's written in a way that even a beginning yogi can learn. These two men are knowledgeable and are selfless in the sharing of their practice.