Awakening the Spine: The Stress-free New Yoga that Works with the Body to Restore Health, Vitality and Energy

"As a practicing yogi of more than 30 years and the owner of many many books on yoga, I found this book a true delight. No it is not helpful if you wish to learn/improve asanas, but what a beautiful book! Full of inspirational text and wonderful photographs. A very worthy addition to my library."
~ Written on 2006-08-16

"This book has amazing pictures and a slow and pleasant pace, but I felt it contained very little 'technical' advice re yoga. It is more like a friendly conversasion about what Vanda learnt and felt about yoga and life. Not what I was looking for. But many will find it inspirational."
~ Written on 2004-07-12

"I've been taking courses in Yoga from teachers of the Scaravelli school for almost a year now, and the ideas are very good. They go beyond instructions of which bit to twist into what position, and emphasise using gravity, acting downwards particularly through the hips, and spinal lengthening acting in the opposite direction. This should be practised gently, with the breathing, to acheive organic flexibility, not wrenching anything.

So far, so good. I bought the book expecting a fuller explanation of using 'softness' and 'rootedness', on the strenght of a recommendation from a teacher. But it was a complete disappointment. From the photos, Scaravelli was clearly an accomplished Yogi, but she couldn't structure a line of text explanation for toffee. From the teachers I've studied under, her ideas are definetely valuable, but this book completely fails to explain them.

Which is a shame, because there is a need for someone to explain the approach. I've got BKS Iyengar's 'Light on Yoga', which is an excellent book, mostly on asanas, in terms of what each position is, and 'Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali', which is hard work, but a great examination of the eightfold path itself. However, neither of these cover the detail of how to approach an asana, how to breath or relax into the asana..."
~ Written on 2002-04-16

"Yoga's a big subject. One book cannot cover everything in detail. Vanda's book focuses on how the spine is key to all your stretching in Yoga. She explains in detail how to use gravity as your friend and healer. This book covers VITAL information for anyone practicing Yoga. There are plenty of videos and books out there with detail about a Yoga routine. This is not one of them. Sandra Sabatini's book on Breathing is another vital key book about the importance of focus on Breathing. Just one subject. Vanda's book is an easy read, that makes you want to try out her guiding words in your Yoga poses as soon as you can roll out your mat."
~ Written on 2001-09-17

"You can't properly understand anything about yoga simply from reading or talking about it. Indeed, one of the main things yoga teaches us is that the only way to really find out about something is to do it! This book has a place though. It is truly inspirational, dealing with the principles that run through the practice, not just the external mechanics. I have been practising yoga for over 15 years, and this book gave me new insights, a deeper understanding and appreciation of it. I would reccommend it to anyone who practices regularly, and I certainly show it to beginner friends - not as a 'how to' (you really need a teacher to start off in my opinion), but to remind you why we're doing it!"
~ Written on 2000-08-07