Leslie Kaminoff - Yoga Anatomy

Yoga Anatomy

Third Edition

Leslie Kaminoff

Amy Matthews

Illustrated by Sharon Ellis and Lydia Mann

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kaminoff, Leslie, 1958- author. | Matthews, Amy, author.

Title: Yoga anatomy / Leslie Kaminoff, Amy Matthews ; illustrated by Sharon Ellis and Lydia Mann

Description: Third edition. | Champaign : Human Kinetics, Inc., [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021024354 (print) | LCCN 2021024355 (ebook) | ISBN 9781492596479 (paperback) | ISBN 9781492596486 (epub) | ISBN 9781492596493 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH: Hatha yoga. | Human anatomy.

Classification: LCC RA781.7 .K356 2022 (print) | LCC RA781.7 (ebook) | DDC 613.7/046--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024354

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021024355

ISBN: 978-1-4925-9647-9 (print)

Copyright 2022, 2012, 2007 by The Breathe Trust

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E8015

To my late yoga teacher, T.K.V. Desikachar, I offer this book in gratitude for your unwavering insistence that I find my own truth. My greatest hope is that this work has justified your confidence in me.

To my philosophy teacher, Ron Pisaturothe lessons will never end.

Finally, to Glenn Marcus. It is rare in ones life that a person can find someone to call a true friend and even rarer to find a mentor who lovingly demands nothing less than the absolute best from you. To find both in one person is nothing short of a miracle. You are truly sui generis.

Leslie Kaminoff

In gratitude to all the students and teachers who have gone beforeespecially Philip, one of my first students, my teacher, and a friend who has gone before. Your curiosity and willingness to explore inspired me as a teacher when I was just starting on this path, and your friendship is still missed.

Amy Matthews

A full decade after completing work on our previous edition, I am very pleased to be writing a preface to a new, third edition of our book Yoga Anatomy. This past year of collaboration with my dear friend Amy Matthews and my life and work partner, Lydia Mann, has been one of extraordinary upheaval and challenge for us all. As it is with so many people affected by the ongoing worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, we have been dislodged from our usual locations, relationships, and routines. Far from providing a quiet, sequestered retreat for writing, this past year has presented its own unique and unprecedented challengesall of which our little pod has overcome with the much appreciated support of the team at Human Kinetics.

Since its initial release in 2007, Yoga Anatomy has not only been adopted as a standard text in the training of yoga teachers, it also has become a touchstone for the careers of its creators. Until this past year of nearly continuous quarantining, Amy and I had each been traveling to teach workshops and training programs to students around the world who know of us mostly as the authors of this work, which has more than 1,000,000 copies in print over two editions and has been translated into 26 languages.

The lessons learned and growth we experienced as teachers became apparent when we returned to the words we had penned 10 years ago and found that we would say them differently now. That is why this edition embodies a distinct shift in tone from previous ones. We have combed through the text and replaced occurrences of his or her with the neutral they or them. We have also replaced many instances of the word the with the words our and ours or you and your, as in your diaphragm versus the diaphragm. These are just a couple of facets of our goal of creating a text that sparks a spirit of inquiry in the reader and practitioner rather than making definitive or prescriptive statements about anatomy in the abstract, as if everyone had the same body. In that spirit, we have inserted Cueing Callouts where our perspective may conflict with flawed anatomical assumptions or questionable teaching instructions.

Additionally, we have expanded and clarified some of the philosophical content of the book within the introduction and existing chapters and added a new jointly authored : Nervous System, in which Amy delivers a deftly nuanced summation of some of its key structures and functions most relevant to yoga.