As Jon Kabat-Zinn writes in his groundbreaking book, “Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness,” “Yoga is meditation.” The two go hand in hand and without one the other does not exist. The library is offering a program called Yoga and Mindfulness for Beginners on Saturday August 25. The class is taught by Brockell Briddle who is a certified yoga instructor in the Columbia area. We also have a wide ranging number of resources related to both yoga and meditation.
Perhaps the best way to learn about a yoga practice and techniques related to it are by taking a class, or watching a video and following along with the instructor poses. The library has dozens of DVDs related to yoga, and several new ones that have come in recently. One of our most popular yoga DVD series is called “Yoga for Busy Moms,” and several different versions can be found on our shelves. Yoga and mindfulness can also be used to assist in dealing with chronic pain; see “Survival Guide for Pain-Free Living” instructed by Peggy Cappy.
One of the great things about yoga is that it is an exercise that can be done by people of all ages. There is baby yoga, toddler yoga, yoga for busy working adults and yoga for the elderly. There are even books about yoga for dogs,“doga” for short. In all seriousness, though, check out “Yoga Friends: A Pose-by-Pose Partner Adventure for Kids” by Miriam Gates if you are looking to begin a yoga practice with your child. Our young children (who aren’t toddlers anymore, but the 12-year-old is already checking out adult yoga books) were always interested in the detailed and sometimes kind of funny poses that her Daddy was trying to do while balancing his morning coffee. It is also a great way to calm down your children’s often frenetic energy, at least for a brief few minutes.
Some practitioners have called yoga the “fountain of youth” and studies confirm that yoga practitioners have lower incidents of heart failure, high blood pressure and arthritis. See the book “Yoga for Healthy Aging” by Baxter Bell for some great tips about gentle poses and other techniques that might help ameliorate the aging process.
Yoga is just part of the ancient Indian practice of Ayurveda. Ayurveda is comprised of a complete bodily 
wholeness: where mindfulness meets yoga and careful eating practices. “Practical Ayurveda: Yoga, Meditation, Massage, Food, Home Remedies” describes some of the methods that embody the practice, with specifically an emphasis on the yoga aspect of it. The book is edited and published by the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center in New York City.
In addition to “Full Catastrophe Living” Kabot-Zinn has written nearly a dozen books about mindfulness, meditation and yoga’s relationship to both practices. The library has a number of his books on our shelves, and we also carry a guided meditation on audiobook CD and our Playaway pre-loaded MP3 players. In this audio presentation, called “Guided Mindfulness Meditation,” Zinn presents a guided “active meditation” that is comprised of yoga poses.
Yoga and Mindfulness for Beginners will be held on Saturday August 25 from 1-2:30 in the Friends Room of the Columbia Public Library. Registration is not required and yoga mats are optional.
