Lauren Lipton - Yoga Bodies: Real People, Real Stories, and the Power of Transformation

TO JAMES

Namaste

Text copyright 2017 by Lauren Lipton.
Photographs copyright 2017 by Jaimie Baird.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 9781452156163 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lipton, Lauren, 1966
Title: Yoga bodies : real people, real stories, and the power of transformation / Lauren Lipton ; photographs by Jaimie Baird.
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025949 | ISBN 9781452156033 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Hatha yogaPopular works. | Self-care, HealthPopular works. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Personal Growth / Happiness. | HEALTH & FITNESS / Yoga.
Classification: LCC RA781.7 .L57 2017 | DDC 613.7/046dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025949

Design by Anne Kenady

The information, practices, and poses in this book are not offered as medical advice or suggested as treatment for any condition that might require medical attention. To avoid injury, practice yoga with a skilled instructor and consult a health professional to determine your bodys needs and limitations. The author, photographer, and publisher hereby disclaim any liability from injuries resulting from following any recommendation in this book.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com

This book is for every yogi.

It is for lifelong yogis, for yogis newer to the practice, and for yogis who have never stepped foot on a mat. That is, who havent yet .

If youve tried yoga, you may have experienced what I call the yoga buzz. Leaving the studio after class, maybe you found yourself unexpectedly happy, thinking, Everything is exactly as it should be. In this enchanted state, the world, even with its suffering, heartache, and aggravation, feels miraculous. People seem divine and beautiful, and you remember that despite our disagreements, were all traveling through life with one another for company. The feeling doesnt last forever; inevitably, honking horns and arguments and your call is very important to us sneak back in to mess with your yoga buzz. But you can get it back whenever you want, just by returning to your mat.

The wish that everybody might have access to this deeply peaceful state of mind led me to create this book.

Yoga Bodies celebrates the many ways yoga can bring joy and meaning to our lives and demonstrates that anyone can do it. You dont have to be athletic and flexible, or any particular age, shape, or size (or, as youll discover in these pages, even human). You dont need to embrace Eastern spirituality or chant in Sanskrit. You need not wear yoga pants, eat kale, or spend years perfecting your posesor, in Sanskrit, asanas. Theres no rule that you have to say asana.

You definitely dont have to have a yoga body, at least not in the ungenerous way the media often defines it: sexy, skinny, and able to contort into impossible positions. The superstar yogis you see in magazines and on the Internet, the women and men who backbend on paddleboards and handstand on cliffs, are extraordinary talents. Some of them are in this book. And they would be the first to tell you that they dont own the term yoga body. They believe, as does anyone who has absorbed the lessons of yoga, that every body is a yoga body. Already. Were born that way.

By the same notion, there is no single definition of yoga. As youll see in this book, yoga invites each of us to define it as we wish.

To me, yoga is the practice of observing myself exactly as I am right now, with no specific expectation of what will happen in the futurewhether thats one second, a week, or twenty years from now. The poses figure in because they keep my mind busy as I work to, say, hold Half Moon Pose. Theres so much to focus onGaze toward the ceiling! Keep breathing! Stay upright!that my anxious mind, which is usually very busy regaling me with a kaleidoscope of catastrophes that might befall me, falls silent. That tiny, temporary respite feels like a vacation. (By the way, although I have been practicing yoga for a while, I am still not great at having no expectations and no anxiety. But Im getting better.)

So thats how I see yoga, but my definition is by no means the official or only one. In this book youll find a different interpretation of yoga with each turn of the page, as more than eighty people express, in words and poses, what yoga means to them.

The yogis in this book are on their own journeys. A few are beginners; some teach yoga for a living. If you know your yoga, you may spot some imperfect poses. Thats also part of the message of Yoga Bodies. Each of these images, by photographer Jaimie Baird, captures one yogi in one pose at one moment in time that is now long past. Perfection, if it even exists, is elusive.

But each of these yogis is divine and beautiful. So are you. So is everyone. Were in this together. We are all yoga bodies.

Lauren Lipton

BOUND TRIANGLE POSE

My name is actually spelled Thuy. I changed it to a phonetic spelling after college so it would be easier for people to understand.

My family came to America from Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. I was five. My father was an Irish-American who worked in Vietnam for an American company. My mother, who is Vietnamese, worked in my fathers office. From what my parents told us, as my mom was collecting the papers for us to leave Vietnam, she had to run in between buildings while explosions were happening in the background.

I dont remember much of Vietnam from my childhood. Our parents had servants and nannies there, but here they worked their butts off. My mom had to learn English. They were both pretty much in survival mode. My sister once told me we were on food stamps for a while back then. I was like, We were?

We four siblings took care of each other, which was fun. But things were definitely not fine. In fourth grade, three boys would tease me and call me chink. I would have liked to be blond with blue eyes, the all-American girl.

It wasnt until I was in my thirties and went back to Vietnam with my mom that I finally started to let go of these ideas of who I wasnt. I was on the way to a cemetery to visit my great-uncles grave, walking though a beautiful vast green rice field. Suddenly, I did this 360-degree Sound of Music thing where I was like, I am Asian! I have slanted eyes, and I love it! This is who I am!

Now I see differences between people, differences in our skin colors and our beliefs, but I think, Who cares? Were all the same.

One of my yoga teachers explained it this way: Imagine a huge wax ball. Thats consciousness. Pull a piece of it and stretch it out. Along the stretchiness of it, there are animals, plants, humans, all part of that invisible ball of consciousness.

When he said this, I was like, Ohits all just God with different faces.