Get Fit Where You Sit: A Guide to the Lakshmi Voelker Chair Yoga Method

"Voelker offers a powerful, inclusive practice that is appropriate for new students or long-time practitioners-and can easily be adopted by yoga instructors, educators, medical professionals, exercise professionals, caretakers, or community workers for work with their clients, students, and patients. This book highlights 40 active and restorative poses, including individual and partner poses, breathing techniques, and meditation practices, all adapted so that students never have to leave their chairs. For every pose, Voelker offers at least three different ways of experiencing it, depending on an individual's level of flexibility and suggests ways to incorporate breath work and chanting. Voelker includes healthy lifestyle, practices and teaching tips, along with yoga philosophy "lessons" throughout. Voelker believes that yoga is only yoga when you make it your own; otherwise it's just exercise. It becomes therapeutic, and even transformational, when the poses, breathing techniques, and meditation practices morph and change to fit your unique body, mind, and heart. The yoga she presents is designed to encourage you to experience the joy in every pose; to celebrate your unique qualities; and to stretch your imagination and creativity, as well as your body and your mind, in ways that feel just right for you"--
This practical guide offers a pioneering method of chair yoga for every body: a full practice of asana, breathing, and meditation with 250 instructional photos.Lakshmi Voelker’s Chair Yoga™ method upends the myth that yoga is only for the flexible, strong, balanced, thin, and conventionally able-bodied. Whether you need or want chair support, or you would like to get in some yoga practice while you sit at your work desk, Get Fit Where You Sit offers 40 active and restorative poses, illustrated with 250 photos, along with breathing techniques and meditation practices—all adapted so that you don’t have to leave your chair. Poses include: Tree Pose—for a flexible spine and to combat the “slump” we often get with a sedentary lifestyleEagle Pose—for healthy jointsSquat Pose—to relax the lower backKnee-to-Chest Pose—to support good digestionCoherent breathing—to bring the body’s systems into balanceAnd much moreLakshmi Voelker and Liz Oppedijk offer a powerful, inclusive practice that is appropriate for new students or longtime practitioners and can easily be implemented by yoga instructors, educators, medical professionals, exercise professionals, or caretakers for work with their clients.