AM/PM Yoga For Beginners (with The Dalai Lama & 10 + Routines)

I was recently diagnosed with advanced osteoporosis. I am 54 with the bones of an 85 year old. I was at first shocked followed by depression, frustration and despair. I bought a stack of books on osteoporosis, all informative and valuable, but it is this one that gently turned me around, opened my heart and inspired me out of the depth of my depression. Linda Sparrowe writes beautifully and yet with an authority that makes me somehow trust her to guide me back into a yoga practice to help myself heal and strengthen my weakened bones. She has helped heal my fragile heart as well as my fragile bones. I felt I must write this review and help it get the 5 stars it so richly deserves. Thank you, Linda, for helping me so much with your sensitive, encouraging book.

This DVD by renowned yoga instructor Barbara Benagh is similar in format to her previous DVD, Yoga for Stress Relief. However, whereas the latter offers practices for different conditions (back pain, headaches, digestive issues, etc.), in the AM/PM DVD, Barbara offers practices designed for morning or evening. These practices, which are slow-moving and quite gentle overall, range in length from 15 to 45 minutes, making it easy to fit yoga into even your busiest days. Barbara frequently uses props: in addition to a yoga mat, I would recommend that you have at least one blanket on hand (preferably 2-3), with pillows and an eye bag being optional.

A breakdown of the DVD is listed below. The headings are the items found on the main menu, and the bullets indicate submenu items (the times for each practice are given as they appear on-screen). I’ve included brief notes describing each of the practices.

Discussion of Meditation by HH The Dalai Lama

AM Routines

*Get Up and Go (15m)–a wonderful flow of upper back openers, including down dog, quarter dog, and cobra

*Sun Salutation Centering (15m)–a single slow lunge salutation combined with seated forward bends

*Breath Work (30m)–a gentle, all-lying/seated practice that includes twists, supported poses, and seated meditation; my favorite!

*Gentle Wake Up (35m)–consists almost entirely of reclined postures plus two seated twists; would be a nice evening practice

*Extended Morning (45m)–a more active practice that begins on the floor but then moves to standing for side stretch, tree, triangle, side angle, and warrior 1; returns to the floor for relaxing poses

*Wake Up the Spine (35m)–begins with the above sun salutation, moves through the same standing series as Ext Morning, and finishes on the floor with reclined poses, seated forward bends, and twists

PM Routines

*Short Rest (10m)–this brief practice offers a reclined twist, pursed lip breathing, and legs-up-the-wall pose

*Breath Work (20m)–starts with a shoulder stretch and seated twist, then moves on to seated meditation, breath work, and savasana

*Unwinding Muscle Tension (30m)–this nice practice features a variety of twisting postures in reclined, seated, and standing positions

*Good Nights Sleep (25m)–another simple practice with crocodile pose, pursed lip breathing, seated meditation, and reclined postures

*Energizing Evening (40m)–this more active practice opens with the above sun salutation followed by a wide-legged standing hamstring twist, then alternates between seated poses (half lord of the fishes, open half lotus) and reclined postures (reclined leg stretch, modified bridge, reclined twist), finishing with legs-up-the-wall

Credits

As in her previous videos, Barbara is practicing alone against the backdrop of a beautiful beach at Half Moon Bay Resort in Antigua. This DVD does feature some of the same posture sequences as in Barbara’s prior Yoga for Stress Relief, but the footage appears to be new. Also, because all of the programs are generally gentle and relaxing, I find the AM vs. PM practices fairly interchangeable for day or night. Overall, this is an excellent yoga DVD well-suited to a wide range of practitioners, from those fairly new to yoga to more experienced yoginis like myself–definitely recommended.

One of them is meditation. When I tried it a few years ago, it was clear my life improved in many different ways. Wanting to try it once more and to adopt it as part of my life, I was looking for a book as free of esoterism, cults, new-age fads and the like as possible. Although this is somewhat a new-age book, it fulfilled my basic expectations. It presents an (although not detailed, this is an introduction book) overview of various kinds of meditations (western, eastern, modern, traditional). It is a practice-oriented book, after each topic you’ll find a simple or simplified exercise. Lots of quotations, not the usual “after the night the sun rises,” but well chosen paragraphs that illustrate the topics being explained. No guru is in charge here, you don’t have to follow rules and you are free to choose the meditation that best suits you. The language is plain and the layout makes it quite comfortable to read. I almost quit reading it when the author talked about the doubts that may arise about the practice of meditation in a very critical way, like we were supposed to believe (=have faith) in his words. He must have forgotten that later on, he quotes a great master saying that doubts are important and should not be disregarded in the learning process. Other than that, I feel safer now to choose what kind of meditation I want to study and practice, no longer lost in a jungle of buzzwords.