Charlotte Bell

The yoga practitioner's essential guide to understanding, preventing, and relieving hip pain in asana practice. The mind-body benefits of daily yoga practice are unquestionably positive, but as yoga has become more popular, an increasing number of yoga practitioners of all ages are suffering from hip and lower back pain and intense sacroiliac joint (SI) discomfort. The urge to push yourself too far, too fast can result in hip pain or injury. The key in protecting your joints and maintaining healthy hips for the long-term is to cultivate strength and stability rather than focusing primarily on flexibility. Hip-Healthy Asana is the yoga practitioner's essential guide to fully understanding, preventing, and relieving hip pain in asana practice, along with practice tips, modifications, and sequences that enhance hip strength and stability for a sustainable practice that can last through every age and stage of life.

Charlotte Bell, author of Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life, has blended the practices of yoga and meditation since 1986. In her new book, Yoga for Meditators, she writes, "Asana practice, by its very nature, is about preparing the body for meditation. So a book on yoga for meditators may seem redundant. All yoga is for meditators, after all. Still, there are poses that I have found to be optimal in addressing the specific physical challenges that arise during meditation, and it is in this spirit that I offer the practices in this book." Divided into four parts, the book offers practices that are designed for beginning and seasoned practitioners: * Taking a Seat: Steady and Comfortable -- addresses the most common physical issues that can cause discomfort during sitting in meditation. * Yoga Poses for Sitting Meditation -- outlines asanas to guide you to a more easeful practice. Whether you practice vipassana, Zen, Transcendental, kriya, or any other kind of sitting meditation, these poses will help you collect the mind, awaken the spine, relax the base, soften the shoulders, and quiet the body-mind.* Practicing Yoga -- uses the asanas from part two to create sequences for calming agitation, increasing energy, opening the hips, relieving stress, easing the lower back, and during the moon cycle. * Alternate Meditation Postures -- discusses the other traditional meditation positions -- walking, standing, and lying -- with ways to settle into each. "The silent, peaceful mind is our birthright; it lives inside us all," Charlotte writes. "Our minds and bodies are interwoven. When the body is at ease, the mind has a much easier time settling into silence. May your asana and meditation practices uncover the peace that already lives within."

A longtime yoga teacher and Buddhist meditation practitioner, Charlotte Bell describes in passionate detail how she applied the eightfold path of the Yoga Sutras and the Buddha’s heed for mindfulness to her hectic Western life—with practicality and precision, grace and guts. Her insights honor these timeless teachings while staying relevant to contemporary life. She recounts personal stories that depict her commitment to practice in her own life: in relationships, music, asana, meditation, teaching, and even writing this book. And it's not all rosy. She writes about self-doubt and struggles, all while welcoming, time and again, the life she has, imperfections and all. Charlotte Bell shows by example how to be a yogi in the particularity of your own life. Her suggestions about how to bring mindfulness into asana will deepen your practice; her recommended daily practices, or Reflections, will reveal new inner landscapes. Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life is an inspiring guide for anyone seeking to live a yogic life.