Prinster - Yoga for cancer : a guide to managing side effects, boosting immunity, and improving recovery for cancer survivors

This book is dedicated to the late Kelly Considine (March 17, 1965January 11, 2013), my able assistant and friend. She fearlessly confronted her cancer for seven years. Until her last breath, she used her yoga practice to make sense of and ease her suffering. These words express her wisdom and great courage.

A strong yet gentle practice is how I am surviving. When asked by the doctors how I support my spine, I tell them, with my core. If that were weak, my back would break. Aside from the strength, yoga keeps me focused. It allows me to flow and breathe and stretch out all the sadness, the fear, and the anxiety. I see it, I flow with it, and I let it go.

KELLY CONSIDINE

YOGA FOR CANCER

Yoga for Cancer is a look into Taris simple yet groundbreaking work with survivors. Her practical guide helps cancer survivors create a safe and inspiring home yoga practice. Taris gentle approach is complemented perfectly by her easy-to-follow guidance, making Yoga for Cancer an instrumental aspect of healing, surviving, and thriving after treatment.

ELENA BROWER, COAUTHOR OF ART OF ATTENTION

As a general oncologist, I wholeheartedly support Yoga for Cancer. Tari has successfully blended the ancient art of yoga with the contemporary art of oncology in a beautifully mindful but scientifically based manner.

JULIE J. OLIN, M.D., MEDICAL ONCOLOGY, FLETCHER ALLEN HEALTH CARE, VERMONT

Yoga for Cancer is a yoga prescription for those touched by cancer. Tari offers support born of experience and tough love liberally sprinkled with compassion. As a writer and yoga teacher, I can say this book makes an important contribution to our collective knowledge of the healing powers of yoga.

LINDA SPARROWE, AUTHOR OF YOGAA YOGA JOURNAL BOOK AND FORMER MANAGING EDITOR OF YOGA JOURNAL

Yoga for Cancer is a must read for all those living with cancer, providing the essential yoga tools with which you can construct your own wellness plan. If you are living with cancer and have tried yoga before or need an invitation to start, please read this book.

KATE MCINTYRE CLERE, WRITER, DIRECTOR, FILMMAKER FOR YOGAWOMAN

Yoga for Cancer is a wonderful read and full of essential information for those living with breast cancer.

LINDA AND BOB CAREY, FOUNDERS OF THE TUTU PROJECT

Taris empathy and knowledge of how the body works is a tremendous benefit to all who read Yoga for Cancer.

MIO FREDLAND, M.D., PSYCHIATRIST, NEW YORK PRESBYTERIAN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF COLUMBIA AND CORNELL

A wonderful aid for beginners like me.

SUSAN GUBAR, WRITER OF THE LIVING WITH CANCER BLOG FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Taris passion to assist cancer survivors is outstanding. Her practice is easy to follow and helps us get over the past and move more powerfully in the future. She provides mind and body empowerment.

DONNA WILSON, RN, MSN, RRT, MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CENTER, INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE CENTER

Tari Prinster was my Yoda-in-a-tank-top. I began taking her yoga classes simply to get back the range of motion in my arm and chest muscles, but her class taught me much more. I left stronger, inside and out. She expresses the lessons of her classes now in this book, and Im thrilled shell get to touch so many more people.

SHELLEY LEWIS, CANCER SURVIVOR AND AUTHOR OF FIVE LESSONS I DIDNT LEARN FROM BREAST CANCER (AND ONE BIG ONE I DID)

Yoga for Cancer is a fact-based guide to healing. Tari explains in clear language what to do and why to unlock the healing potential of yoga.

STEPHANIE M. SHORTER, PH.D., RYT, NEUROSCIENTIST AND FOUNDER OF MIND-BODY COLLECTIVE

While I was going through cancer treatments a few years ago, Taris classes really helped me focus on something else besides being sick. The techniques and wisdom in Yoga for Cancer are almost as good as having Tari right there with you.

JAKE BURTON, FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN OF BURTON SNOWBOARDS

This book is a terrific guide for survivors to do a daily practice. Its goal is to make this method of yoga for cancer a beacon for every survivor in the form of a book. Tari did a wonderful job creating this step-by-step method, and survivors everywhere will benefit.

PAULETTE SHERMAN, PSY.D., PSYCHOLOGIST, CANCER SURVIVOR, AND AUTHOR OF THE CANCER PATH

As a cancer survivor myself, I found Taris information on how to detoxify our body to be invaluable to my recovery. Yoga for Cancer is a useful tool for helping cancer survivors to reclaim their lives.

KATHLEEN MCBETH, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST AND COORDINATOR AT THE CANCER PATIENT SUPPORT PROGRAM

AUTHORS NOTE

Throughout this book you will read vignettes written by some of my yoga students, yoga teachers I have trained, and yoga friends who have been touched by or are living with cancer. These brief narratives are written about their personal experience of recovery using yoga. There has been minimal editing of their words to protect personal identity.

Veronica, cancer survivor

Foreword

Cyndi Lee, founder of OM yoga

The first time I met Tari Prinster was at OM yoga, my yoga studio in New York City. Along with forty-nine other people, Tari was attending an informational meeting about the upcoming OM yoga teacher training program I was offering. After explaining the nuts and bolts of the program I invited questions, and Taris hand went up. Do you have to be able to do a pose in order to teach it?

Good question, and a fairly typical one. But Tari was not typical. My Greenwich Village yoga studio was full of strong and hyper-agile dancers in their twenties and thirties. Tari looked to be in her midfifties, a rare demographic for urban yoga studios in 2000, and that fact alone distinguished her as someone curious and confident, maybe even courageous. I wondered what it was she thought she couldnt do. As I looked at her more closely, I wondered what she would do, because it was clear that she could probably do whatever she wanted. Despite learning of her hip injury, I readily accepted her into the program.

Flash forward ten years to the Forest studio at OM yoga, where, along with twenty other women, I am wrapped in duct tape. This was one of Taris brilliant ideas for helping the participants in our OM yoga Woman Cancer Survivor Teacher Training course understand the physical restrictions that often result from breast cancer treatments and surgeries. We pulled the tape tight around our abdomens to feel what it would be like to have our belly fat removed to make a new breast. We used it to strap down our upper arms, disabling lifting movements as if wed had lymph nodes removed.

The duct tape made us laugh at first, but then people became deeply emotional and the tears flowed. Tari understood that emulating cancers potential physical restrictions was just a gateway to helping us feel, in our breath, bones, muscles, and heart, the experiences of those whom we were trying to help.

Through her years of dedication to this work, Tari had found the answer to her original question, with a variation: Do you have to have cancer to teach yoga to cancer survivors? No, but it helps if you can somehow embody what it feels like to walk the path of a cancer survivor.