Recommended Read

“Everybody

needs

a rock.

I’m sorry for kids

who don’t have

a rock

for a friend.

I’m sorry for kids

who only have

TRICYCLES

BICYCLES

HORSES

ELEPHANTS

GOLDFISH

THREE-ROOM PLAYHOUSES

FIRE ENGINES

WIND-UP DRAGONS

AND THINGS LIKE THAT —

if

they don’t have

a

rock

for a friend.”

-- Byrd Baylor

Everybody Needs A Rock by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall, is not just for kids. Follow her simple but insightfull tips on searching for the perfect rock to the letter and you'll find yourself moving and looking in all the ways nature intended. Priceless.

recommended read

This is not just an amazing dance book, it's an amazing book! Deep and profound, I highly recommend this record of an amazing woman and artist and her process.

Recommended Reads

Recommended Read

Road Warrior

After fifty years, Gloria Steinem is still at the forefront of the feminist cause.

By Jane Kramer  || Click the title to read.

 “I’m an entrepreneur of social change,” Steinem says. “I talk. I write. I tell stories. I want to do justice to the women I meet.”  

(Photograph by Inez and Vinoodh for The New Yorker)

recommended read

this journey is very good indeed...

Recommended Read

This is a slightly premature recommendation because I haven't finished reading it yet, mostly because I keep getting side-tracked looking up all the wondrous thins Chris references BUT I'm really enjoying it so far.I am really enjoying this.

If you want a much more nuanced argument for giving it a go then take a listen to this Liberated Body podcast.

Recommended Read

Body Intelligence Meditation by Ged Sumner
 This is the sentence that attracted me to this book “Biology is just another subject taught in school, but when you take away our beliefs, all we are is our biology.”

Ged Sumners book was driven into being by the idea that the more conventional forms of meditation can be seen to encourage an escape or "rise above" the body and a desire to stop thoughts, which he considers anti-body and something that lends itself to dissociation from the body....something I would agree holds a gem of truth...

This vivid and well thought through book includes a good number of meditations that show you how to tune into the subtle states that lie within the body. I really enjoyed the clearly guided visualisations that help create an easy and deeply felt connection with the physical body.

If you are interested in exploring the universe that is your body in a very simple and deeply felt way then I highly recommend this book (or the audio downloads). It's a brilliant tool to add too your embodied thinking box.

Recommended Read: A Guide to Better Movement

I'm currently working my way through A Guide to Better Movement by Todd Hargrove, and even though I'm not done yet I highly recommend it! Todd presents recent work in neuroscience, and his extensive background in a variety of sports and movement practices, to guide an understanding of the psychological and physiological whys behind movement patterns and habits. Once your brain has finished digesting there are lots of practical puzzles and 'exercises' to try out for yourself, which I have personally found very usesfull when teaching my students how to map basic movement patterns. 

If you want to know more then check out Todd's Better Movement Blog (which the book consolidates) and have a listen to this interview over at Liberated Bodies. 

Happy learning!

Peter Blackaby

Intelligent Yoga: Re-educating Mind and Body by Peter Blackaby

Having been to a couple of brilliant anatomy workshops with Peter Blackaby a little while ago I knew this would be a must read when I saw it and it really is!

Peter has been greatly influenced by the work of Vanda Scaravelli (see yesterdays post) and his practice as an osteopath and this book is a thoughtful, interesting and thoroughly researched interpretation of Yoga with a focus on the enquiry you should be having with your body and your practice. 

I read a review on Amazon a while ago that described it perfectly, so i'm going to borrow... 'Blackaby has unpicked movement without fracturing it and teaches intelligent practice in the context of the known, the surmised and the lived, suggesting an approach to yoga that is rational, disciplined and fulsomely human and humane.'

Go read, and then go to a workshop...I have two booked for the New Year : )

Jill Miller

Jill Miller is the creator of Yoga Tune Up, a fitness therapy that combines conscious corrective exercise with precise self-myofascial release using therapy balls and I am a big fan of her work. Jill is insatiably curious about the human body, deeply thoughtful and heartfelt about what she has to offer and incredibly well-educated.

Short of taking Jill miller home with you to reset your scapular, there is no better guide out there for step-by-step self massage and care then this book (not that i have come across anyway...please do say if you think I'm wrong!).

I also LOVED what Matthew Remski had to say about the images of herself in Yoga poses she had chosen to use in the book. he makes a very important and valid point.

"You might have heard of Jill Miller. Her new book, The Roll Model, is the culmination of years of yoga practice, injury, biomechanics research, massage experimentation, and recovery. There’s a lot to say about the book, but I’d like to close by focusing on a few out-of-the-way captions she writes beneath images of herself demonstrating difficult postures. The captions put talent in its place.
In the first (Kindle loc. 5707), she stands on two blocks in a forward fold so deep that she can flatten her palms onto the floor. The caption reads:

I am demonstrating a fairly extreme range of motion in this forward bend. Please do not try to force yourself into this shape. I use this image to make it obvious that this sequence aims to open the entire back of your body.

In the second (loc. 5762), she’s in a mesmerizing expression of revolved side-angle. The caption:

I am demonstrating an extreme range of motion in this twisted side bend. Please do not try to force yourself into this shape. I use this image to make it obvious that this sequence targets the sides of your body.

Finally, loc. 6494 shows her in three advanced postures, including padmasana. Here’s the best caption of all:

Just because you can do a pose does not mean that you should. These are poses that I have retired from my repertoire. Retired. They made my hips, knees, and spine click and pop and are not suitable for my body.

I might be wrong, but I believe this is the first time in the history of yoga instructional literature in which a teacher/presenter has disclaimed images of their own achievements with the warning “Do not try at home.” It’s like the caption in the sports car commercials: “Closed track. Professional driver. Do not attempt.”

Here’s someone who has the courage to demonstrate a unique skill — a talent — that was maladaptive to her, and that she knows would be toxic for others to mimic. In a way, Miller is sneaking a paraphrase of Krishna’s key teaching in through the backdoor of a biomechanics manual: “It is far better to follow one’s own dharma poorly than someone else’s dharma well.” (Gita 3.35) Don’t imitate, says the avatar."

-- Matthew Remski

Go and put it  (and some yoga tune up balls) on your Xmas list.  

Katy Bowman

This woman is brilliant.
Go directly to her blog to read everything she has to say, or listen to the many inspiring podcasts she is firing out, or better yet add Move Your DNA to your online bookbuying wish-list.
It is a must read if you move (i.e. if you are human). I cannot recommend it highly enough. In it Katy forms a brilliantly written, scientifically based alternative way of thinking about movement and exercise, which maybe, just maybe, will change the way you see the whole damn universe. Revolutionary and a truly beautiful thing.

 

However, there's no point in starting a revolution if you're hungry. So why not add this mighty fine cook book to your (NOT AMAZON) basket while you are at it.

Recommended Read

“There are a whole lot of ways to be perfect, and not one of them is attained through punishment.”

I've been dipping in and out of this and I highly recommend having a copy on your book shelf. Brain pickings have a brilliant review, much more eloquent then I can manage, and here is my favorite bit from the essay “Dogs, Cats, and Dancers: Thoughts about Beauty”.

"Dogs don’t know what they look like. Dogs don’t even know what size they are. No doubt it’s our fault, for breeding them into such weird shapes and sizes. My brother’s dachshund, standing tall at eight inches, would attack a Great Dane in the full conviction that she could tear it apart. When a little dog is assaulting its ankles the big dog often stands there looking confused — “Should I eat it? Will it eat me? I am bigger than it, aren’t I?” But then the Great Dane will come and try to sit in your lap and mash you flat, under the impression that it is a Peke-a-poo.

Cats know exactly where they begin and end. When they walk slowly out the door that you are holding open for them, and pause, leaving their tail just an inch or two inside the door, they know it. They know you have to keep holding the door open. That is why their tail is there. It is a cat’s way of maintaining a relationship.

Housecats know that they are small, and that it matters. When a cat meets a threatening dog and can’t make either a horizontal or a vertical escape, it’ll suddenly triple its size, inflating itself into a sort of weird fur blowfish, and it may work, because the dog gets confused again — “I thought that was a cat. Aren’t I bigger than cats? Will it eat me?

A lot of us humans are like dogs: we really don’t know what size we are, how we’re shaped, what we look like. The most extreme example of this ignorance must be the people who design the seats on airplanes. At the other extreme, the people who have the most accurate, vivid sense of their own appearance may be dancers. What dancers look like is, after all, what they do."

women in clothes

Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton have created a book entitled Women in Clothes, which is about women’s relationship to style and why women wear what they wear. For the book, Gus Powell photographed Zosia Mamet reenacting memorable fashion poses that Shapton pulled from magazines.

I'm really enjoying this book!
I love dressing up, but clearing out my wardrobe this week got me thinking...for someone so interested in 'moving well' I have an awful lot of stuff that restricts natural movment, from shoes to skirts to bras!
I'm now weeding out the stuff that makes me move more like a robot then a human being.
Except for the gold shoes with a mini disco balls on the heel that I can't walk in (taxi shoes!) they are staying...

 

put your movement cap on...

Today I just have THIS podcast from Katy Bowman for Well Rounded Athlete . It is fascinating.
I'm currently reading Katy's book Move your DNA and as a result I now walk EVERYWHERE I can and have stopped using the furniture in my flat...currently typing this sitting in a squat.
Check it out...I shall leave you with some of the best quotes.

“You adapt to what you do most frequently….not what you do with the best of intentions.”

“You have ‘casted’ your body by walking only on flat, level ground.”

“We’re all overdosing on Vitamin Sit On Your Butt.”

“We’re bent on trying to fix our problems, without changing the environment in which the problem was created.”

Recommended Read

John Berger: And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photo

I have just finished reading this, for the second time, and i recommend it highly!

It is a very sensitive, poetic book. A reflection on time and space, in relation to love, pulled together by poetry, essays, reviews and philosophy...it's so hard to describe you need to read it!

It's definitely the most beautiful meditation on love I've come across thus far.

images from here.

Recommended Read

Another recommended read from Brené Brown. This time The Gifts of Imperfection.
She's an authority on shame, empathy and authenticity (she's dedicated her life's work and research to these themes) and a brilliant storyteller!
It’s this mix of science and story that make The Gifts of Imperfection an interesting, inspiring, and insightful read. Click below for a little taster and to hear Oprah's joy...moment 3:55 is my favorite : )

“Dr. Kristin Neff is a researcher and professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She runs the Self-Compassion Research Lab, where she studies how we develop and practice self-compassion. According to Neff, self-compassion has three elements: self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Here are abbreviated definitions for each of these: Self-kindness: Being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism. Common humanity: Common humanity recognizes that suffering and feelings of personal inadequacy are part of the shared human experience—something we all go through rather than something that happens to “me” alone. Mindfulness: Taking a balanced approach to negative emotions so that feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. Mindfulness requires that we not “over-identify” with thoughts and feelings, so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.”

― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

Recommended Read: Swimming Studies

I picked up Leanne Shapton's Swimming Studies purely because I liked the cover (and the collection of swimming costumes inside) shallow, I know, but it turned out to be a lucky pick.

As I have mentioned before I've been swimming since I was a tiny, one of the only things my parents were adamant me and my brothers stuck with, and Shapton’s vivid description of a moment during a swim practice brought me back to my own child hood experience: the soupy chorine-thick smell, the familiar feeling of sweating while in water, and the refreshing wave of winter cold hitting me as I made a flip turn at the far end of the pool. In evocatively describing things familiar and unknown, Swimming Studies brings the solitary activity of swimming into everyday life.  It isn’t a sports book, more of a place for athlete and artist to coexist. Right up my street and something i'll be dipping back into i'm sure!

I would read it if I were you...

Recommended Read: You are not so smart

Currently reading this by David McRaney and it's very smart. I recommend you read it too!

Recommended read

The Gift. A must read!

Recommended Read

“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” – Plato

Since Plato, individuals have been trying to exercise their way out of the diseases of civilized living. And to be fair, “exercise more” is a fine goal to begin with. But, as Plato and modern scientists recognize, the goal to “move more when I’m not exercising” is foundational. This significant movement recommendation is often lost when we focus on exercise as a means to a ripped body or high-octane performance, and we forget that moving is as essential as eating. Before we go big, we must go basic. Back to the essential human movements and frequency of movements that provide the context for a human to flourish.

I do believe that “get strong enough for living” makes a noble goal for 2014, don’t you?"

Read this guest post on Breaking Muscle by Katy Bowman of Katy Says and Restorative Exercise Institute 

(Image found here )