Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #369740 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Synopsis
This programme of yoga for equestrians should help build a stronger mind-body connection for improved performance. All the exercises are demonstrated with detailed photographs. The easy-to-follow instructions and photographs guide you through asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises), plus a variety of unmounted and mounted awareness exercises, visualizations, and meditations aim to enhance your riding skills. Versatile yoga routines, that can be performed by riders at the stable, at home, or at a show, are designed for warming up and cooling down and the book offers biomechanical descriptions and detailed illustrations that describe the three areas of a rider's body - centre, upper body and lower body - which are followed by specific postures to help prepare your body for riding and achieve a balanced seat.

Customer Reviews

really, really helpful
This is a very useful book It gives exercises to help you achieve such elusive desirables as a deep seat, relaxation in the saddle, a balanced position, light hands and so on. Some you can do at home, some can be adapted to be done at the stables using a chair or mounting block, and some can be done in the saddle. However, you don't have to do the saddle-based ones if this poses logistical problems, and so the book is useful for non-owners and those whose riding school may not take kindly to you trying out bizarre postures and breathing routines on the backs of their animals!

The exercises are basically stretches with yoga principles. Devotees of yoga will not be surprised to hear there is a lot of emphasis on breathing, energising and power centres. There's also quite a lot about visualisation. I'm not into yoga or general meditative pursuits and found some of that a little irritating and off-putting, however it's worth doing these exercises as they help you make subtle adjustments to your seat that really do make a difference to your riding.
I'm on my first read-through of the book and so have not absorbed many of the lessons yet, but over the weekend I've been trying just the breathing techniques while riding and have found they have made a lot of difference to my seat - it's quieter, gentler, far more balanced, and more sensitive - and that is just from one exercise.

If you like books by the 'bodyworking' type authors such as Mary Wanless, Sally Swift and Joni Bentley, you'll really like Yoga For Equestrians and some of the concepts in it will seem familiar but there is enough new material - or perhaps time-honoured material presented in new ways - to make this a worthwhile purchase. I found it gave me helpful insights into important ideas I read about in other books but couldn't quite get right. One of the things I like enormously about Yoga for Equestrians is that it quotes from these other authors - a cross-fertilisation of ideas that is very pleasing to see as often I feel the authors of in-depth riding and dressage books each think they're the only one with the right answer! But even if you haven't read any of those other books, or have never done yoga, this book will probably be a great help to your riding. Just be prepared to do some bizarre things.