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This book changed the way I thought about the way I move, how I speak about the humane body and why I believe self-massage and pressure / a variety of forces are critical to the health of the tissues of the human body. Practical tips and pictures!

This book gave me the confidence I needed to start integrating self massage into my personal practice and, eventually, my yoga classes. This book provides great photos of wonderfully designed sequences and helps you get a handle on the rich benefits self massage can have for a yoga and movement practice.

If you want to learn how to craft smart self massage sequences that impact the way we move in the world, this book is fantastic. Dig deep into the world of fascia and biomechanical regulation, learn the myofascial tracks that help us perform certain movements and the bony landmarks that will help you follow the train.

This reference book is perfect for building sequences based on yoga postures, movements or focal areas. Want to roll the muscles that make it hard to do a crescent lunge? Turn to the page that shows you all the muscles for hip flextion and viola - you know where to roll! This book also contains a series of trigger points and “referral pattern” maps at the end of the book - making it easy to understand where you or a student might feel additional associated sensation when they roll a certain area.

After a brilliant and helpful introduction, each chapter starts with a “Pain Guide.” The pain guide will have specific categories like “inner wrist and palm” or “top of foot” or “inner thigh” or “jaw” - and then provides 2-6 pages that showcase muscles, trigger points and body work techniques that you can go to for specific techniques that help with that particular type of pain. When people come to me with pain challenges, this is one of the first places I go.

Every time I read or listen to anything by Donna Farhi, I take with me nuggets of wisdom for my classes and personal practice. If you are a yoga teacher in this modern era, this book is essential. Donna takes us through a world of challenging power dynamics and awkward scenarios (money, marketing, false advertising) that have infiltrated the yoga world and provides sage advice on how you can stay true to yourself, your yoga and effectively support your students for years to come. This book is a wonderful sounding board for many ethical discussions facing the yoga world today.

While the cover may look similar, the topics tackled here are very different than Dona Farhi’s book above. Here, Judith (the Restorative Yoga Queen herself) digs into what it takes to truly approach a student and offer an assist from a grounded, sophisticated place. While the end of the book provides several pictorial examples of assists - I find the first part of the book incredibly helpful to setting the mental stage to offer hands on assists.

I have yet to read a more compelling hybrid of energetic and “western” anatomy. Tias is so rich and skillful in the way he blends these perspectives that it helps all teachers and students of yoga really understand the inner whys and hows of postures, movements and self-massage zones. For those looking to bring more yoga theory and strategty into their teaching - this book is the bees knees. Take it slow, though, there’s a lot to digest. I listened to it before I read it and worked with the concepts from one chapter every 2 weeks until I felt confident and then tackled a new one.