Just a note-- I recently saw Hittleman's "Yoga For Health" book, which is also excellent, giving great advice on diet, meditation, and more in-depth commentary on each asana (plus three different routines, in case you get tired of those provided in the 28 day plan).
(1) Hittleman has a condescending and dictatorial writing style that I do not like. He keeps on drumming it into our heads that we must follow his routines *exactly* as written, but never explains why. The result is that we end up irrationally afraid of injury if we deviate at all from his plan. He doesn't explain anything about "balancing" the workout by alternating backward and forward bends, or anything like that. he just gives us the routine and says, basically, do it this way or else. Some days I would have back pain, and the day's routine didn't include any back exercises. I wanted to add to the routine but was worried something bad would happen, since Hittleman hadn't explained the logic behind the design of the workouts.
(2) Hittleman rarely tells us what muscles we are supposed to be working with any given exercise. Yeah, maybe women in the late sixties were not expected to know the names for their muscles, but I would certainly have appreciated more detail than "your legs" or "your waistline". How am I supposed to know if I'm doing the exercise correctly if I don't know where I'm supposed to feel the "pull"?
(3) Insulting tripe like the "Scalp Exercise". This is not an exercise. It consists of pulling at your hair for a minute or so. Yes, it's pleasurable, but it's not an exercise, and I don't want to waste my workout time playing with my hair.
(4) Awkward design of workouts. The way the routines are set up, you go through and do each exercise once, then go through and do each exercise a few more times, then start all over and do each exercise in succession *again*, this time in a slow-motion "dance" routine style. What is the point of ending the routine with a relaxing, lying-down move if we just have to get up and repeat the darn thing two more times? If I'm going to do three reps of something, I'd rather do them all at once, before moving on to the next exercise.
(5) The disturbing admonition to eat as little as possible. Hello? We are not Highly Evolved Mystics who can sit on top of a mountain and subsist on air for the rest of our lives. We need to eat FOOD or we will end up in the HOSPITAL. I understand that we should try to eat sensibly, but Hittleman's extreme advice bothers me and scares me.
After a brief period working with this book, I decided (a) that I wanted to continue in yoga, and (b) that I needed a different book to do it. I'm currently working my way through Lisa Trivell's _I Can't Believe It's Yoga_. And I'll be sure to review it once I've formed my opinion on it!
