Matthew Sweeney's new book arrived from http://www.theyogashop.co.uk/ yesterday. Impressed with Yogashop, ordered the book Monday arrived Thursday with a thick piece of cardboard in the envelope to stop the book bending. First thing, the book is huge, A3 so almost twice the size of his other book (Will he be bringing out an A3 version of that I wonder). This too is ring bound and with the same format as his earlier book "Yoga as it is". I really like the first book, it's deceptive, more in it than you think. they both have two pages of text on each page so when you see the contents page you need to take that into account.
Another thing you need to take into account is that old chestnut " A picture says a thousand words" Mathew likes pictures! So when he's exploring (just changed explaining to exploring) something, like Jumping back crossed legged he'll have five sequences, each picture in the sequence labled with what's going on, and then he'll refer to each sequence in the text.
Jump back fans wont be disappointed as he has sequenced sections on Jumping back to surynamaskara, jumping forward to surynamaskara, stepping through and stepping back, jumping through crossed legged, jumping back crossed legged, jumping through straight legged, jumping back straight legged. Mathew clearly knows what we want (What some of us want, I was recently told off that it's about the asanas not the jump backs. Next I'll be told perhaps that breathing is about the inhale not the exhale.....hang on I like that. Ashtanga, is like breathing, the asana is the inhale the vinyasa the exhale, couldn't have one without the other...must write that down). Yes, he knows what we want, all the cool stuff is here the handstands, dropbacks, tic tacks etc. all the stuff that joyously links the asanas together.And that for me is the point. The asana are linked and once you have a nice version of the jump back and jump through working, and some nice floaty handstands the asanas link together beautifully. You flow from one to the other and can really ride the breath and get into that wonderful meditative state. Isn't that what makes Ashtanga different from other forms of Yoga. And it's why I think the five new sequences that make up the second half of Mathew's book are Ashtanga. The sequence of poses are different but the principles are there. Can't really talk about the new sequences yet as I've only glanced at them but I know of another couple of bloggers that are exploring them and having a great time (links to come). http://theyogabum.blogspot.com/search?q=krama
Will add to this review as I get further into the book and feel free to ask if you have any questions about it's contents as it's not on Amazon so there's no decent preview of it anywhere and it's not cheap. (but worth the price alone though is the visual Asana library at the back 19 huge pages worth).
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3 comments:
Thank you for the recommendation. I love Metthews first book. It has a place on my sofa. I am sure I will like his second book. I just ordered it.
Ursula
I wish I had read your review, before I announced to the world that I thought the book was overpriced. I now bought the book and I can see what you mean. It is really great and after the 3 day workshop with MS, I find the book very helpful in remembering all the little details he told us about.
Yes it's good isn't it. I'm not that interested in his own series but some great info at the beginning. Nice explanation of how the split works when you move on to another series too. Just find it an irritating size. can't find anywhere to keep it and don't take it out as much as i would if it was smaller. I can see why he did it but wish he'd kept it the same size as his other one.
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