Elizabeth Gowing is not a likely yogini. She is too fond of chocolate and To-do lists, and sometimes falls over on her mat.
But yoga has taken her on journeys both inside and out and now she follows yoga around Britain - from the village hall where a quivering triangle pose was interrupted by the council recycling collection to a sound gong bath in the country's noisiest city, from Cornwall to Scotland. She discovers prisoners finding solace in child's pose; children finding expression in dancer pose, and dancers sitting bendily in cobbler's pose. Her feet start to hurt and she realizes that yoga is a current of shared experience that runs quietly through British society, through Middle England to the nation's extremes. In schools and hospitals, from Newcastle to Nottingham, Wales to West Kilbride, she untangles the Ashtanga from the Kundalini, the Sanskrit from the whimsical new-age, and finds the ways that yoga is rebuilding communities and lives - and her own wobbling body.
Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, Gowing evokes the characters and communities she meets along a fascinating journey in a celebration of ancient wisdom solving modern-day problems and the exultation of finally mastering the Crow.
Elizabeth Gowing is not a likely yogini. She is too fond of cake and To-do lists, and sometimes falls over on her mat. But yoga has taken her on journeys both inside and out and now she follows yoga around Britain from the village hall where a quivering triangle pose was interrupted by the council recycling collection to a sound gong bath in the country s noisiest city, from Cornwall to Scotland. She discovers prisoners finding solace in child s pose; children finding expression in dancer pose, and dancers sitting bendily in cobbler s pose. Her feet start to hurt and she realizes that yoga is a current of shared experience that runs quietly through British society, through Middle England to the nation s extremes from Newcastle to Nottingham, East Anglia to West Kilbride, she untangles the Ashtanga from the Kundalini, the Sanskrit from the whimsical new-age, and finds the ways that yoga is rebuilding communities and lives and her own wobbling body. Sometimes funny, sometimes touching, Gowing evokes the characters and communities she meets along a fascinating journey in a celebration of ancient wisdom solving modern-day problems and the exultation of finally mastering the Crow.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Chapter 1: Where YouTube can’t take you
Chapter 2: The village hall, Port Isaac
Chapter 3: Spirit level – Stand-up Paddleboard yoga in Nottingham
Chapter 4: Balance on Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire
Chapter 5: Lululemon, Edinburgh
Chapter 6: Wiped – hot yoga and belonging in Brighton
Chapter 7: Doing time – yoga in prison, Surrey
Chapter 8: Smart cafés with mismatched chairs – yoga with asylum seekers in London
Chapter 9: Yoga for people living with Parkinson’s, West Kilbride
Chapter 10: Upwardly mobile – aerial yoga in Godalming
Chapter 11: Downward-facing Doga – yoga with your dog in Shoreditch
Chapter 12: PraiseMoves, a ‘Christian alternative to yoga’ in Peterborough
Chapter 13: Kundalini – awakening the coiled serpent of the Cotswolds
Chapter 14: Britain’s noisiest city – a sound bath in Newcastle
Chapter 15: Iyengar yoga, Maida Vale, London
Chapter 16: Yoga nidra, Stroud
Chapter 17: Children’s yoga,Slough
Chapter 18: Brahma Kumaris on the Isle of Man
Chapter 19: Pranayama, Liverpool
Chapter 20: Laughter yoga, Blackpool
Chapter 21: The Mandala Yoga Ashram, Carmarthenshire
Chapter 22: In my end is my beginning – Yin yoga in Newquay
Glossary
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