Introduction 1
What You Can Do In A Day 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 2
Chapter 1: The Ins and Outs of Yoga and Breathing 3
A Brief Introduction to Yoga 4
Breathing Your Way to Good Health 5
Taking high-quality breaths 6
Relaxing with a couple of deep breaths 7
Practicing safe yogic breathing 7
Reaping the benefits of yogic breathing 8
Breathing through your nose (most of the time) 9
What if I can't breathe through my nose? 9
How about breathing through my nose all the time? 9
The Mechanics of Yogic Breathing 10
Appreciating the complete yogic breath 11
Belly breathing 11
Belly-to-chest breathing 12
Chest-to-belly breathing 13
Starting out with focus breathing 15
Realizing the power of a pause 16
Partners in Yoga: Breath and Postural Movement 16
Chapter 2: Please, Be Seated 19
Understanding the Philosophy of Yoga Postures 20
Looking at the Many Variations of Sitting 21
Chair-sitting posture 21
The easy posture: Sukhasana 23
The thunderbolt posture: Vajrasana 24
Chapter 3: Standing Tall 27
Standing Strong 27
Exercising Your Options 28
Mountain posture: Tadasana 29
Standing forward bend: Uttanasana 30
Triangle posture: Utthita trikonasana 32
Warrior I: Vira Bhadrasana I 33
Warrior II: Vira Bhadrasana II 34
Standing spread-legged forward bend: Prasarita pada uttanasana 36
Downward-facing dog: Adhomukha shvanasana 37
Chapter 4: Steady as a Tree: Mastering Balance 39
Getting to the Roots of the Postures 39
Balancing Postures for Graceful Strength 40
Warrior at the wall: Vira Bhadrasana III variation 41
Balancing cat 42
The tree posture: Vrikshasana 43
The karate kid 44
Standing heel-to-buttock 45
Chapter 5: Dynamic Posture: The Sun Salutation 47
Gliding Through the 7-Step Kneeling Salutation 48
Advancing to the 12-Step Sun Salutation 50
Chapter 6: A Recommended Beginners' Routine 53
Starting Off Slowly and Wisely 53
Trying Out a Fun Beginners' Routine 54
Corpse posture 54
Lying arm raise 55
Knee-to-chest posture 56
Downward-facing dog 56
Child's posture 57
Warrior I 58
Standing forward bend 59
Standing spread-legged forward bend 60
The karate kid 61
Corpse posture redux 62
Chapter 7: Where to Go from Here 63
Taking Your First Steps 63
Visiting dummiescom 64
