This book deserves to become a standard text for yoga teachers. 

An understanding of anatomy and body mechanics is important when teaching yoga.  Here is a book which covers anatomy in great detail, and then applies it in a practical and informative way to the practice of hatha yoga.

David Coulter writes about a complex subject clearly and simply.  He has been a university lecturer on anatomy and has studied and practiced yoga intensively. This is a book teachers will want to read, but also refer to again and again while planning classes.  For the serious non-teaching yoga practitioner, this book will help to deepen their understanding of their physical work.

Anatomy of Hatha Yoga begins with an in-depth description of the musculo-skeletal system and the nervous system. There is then a long section on the physiology of breathing and analysis of various pranayamas and their effects.

All the succeeding chapters deal with groups of postures, such as standing asanas, twists, backbends, inversions etc.  The final chapter covers relaxation and meditation.

An example of how useful this book can be is found in the section on abdominal movements. Most yoga teachers know about the risks to some students of double leg raising, but how many know why?  The workings of the iliopsoas muscles are clearly explained and David Coulter describes a useful diagnostic tool to assess students.  With the student lying down, one hand is placed on the abdomen and the fingertips of the other under the small of the back. Can the student engage the abdominal muscles and press the lower back to the floor in order to provide a firm base for some of the more challenging abdominal exercises, like double leg raising or navasana (the boat)? If not, David Coulter gives some useful variations on these postures which ground the lower back and are suitable for less advanced students.

Even those who have an excellent understanding of how to practice yoga will find that this book frequently illuminates by showing the reader why certain asanas are performed in one way and not another.  The section on ashwini mudra, moola bandha, uddiyana bandha and nauli is outstanding. It provides both a clear explanation of the anatomy and physiology of these practices and clear instruction on how to develop gradually a rewarding home practice.

This book in not cheap (over £30) but you get more than 600 pages, crammed with information and diagrams that yoga teachers will find fascinating and of great practical use.

David Coulter has laboured for 25 year to produce this book, encouraged by the late Swami Rama of the Himalayan Institute. The result has been wellworth waiting for.

Review by Yoga UK, copyright: www.yogauk.com

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