Cover Image: Wild Asana

Wild Asana

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Member Reviews

This copy was kindly given to me by Netgalley and Publisher for review. All opinions are my own.

This book was an interesting take on our connection with the natural world and yoga's connection to that world as well. The author pulls on personal experience and her interaction with these connections; personally I really enjoyed the break down of history of the animals' and their poses. I also enjoyed the flows that were also provided.

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NetGalley Review.

Authentic, Heartfelt. Highly recommend for any Yoga Student and Teacher. Topic in this book I have often thought about and wanted to discuss with others, and this author opens the door for this to be an open conversation.

Absolutely loved this book.

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I loved this book. The stories lying within that the in yoga poses and the animal world. This is just a gorgeous book and a beautiful gift for any yoga lover. Each story is completed with an Asana to compliment it.
Thank you so much for this beautiful ARC, I can’t wait to find a print version.

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A beautifully written exploration into the animals that inspired the familiar yoga poses. Each chapter was meticulously researched, held interesting facts and information, as well as spiritual experiences and a huge amount of feeling.

The author was very much present, and her passion for beyond-humans is clear. She has poured herself into this book which added a very personal feel, very much like the a conversation between reader and author.

Each chapter inspired me to slow down and to think carefully about the words I was reading and the creatures within them.

I particularly enjoyed the practices recommended at the end of each chapter, I will go back to those time and time again.

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A beautiful book that lifts the spirit and examines our connections with nature using animal poses in yoga. There is so much to discover and enjoy.

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3.5 stars rounded up.

If you were a fan of Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer or World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, but you're also a practicing yogi and you want to tie your practice in more with nature and the animal poses associated with it, I recommend this book. While it didn't deliver quite what I was hoping (I pictured more education and history, less personal memoir-style narration), I still think this is a great book to pair with a yoga practice. I liked the exercises at the end of each chapter and the flow at the end of the book that incorporates all the poses we learned about. They called for positive reflection and awareness while in nature without feeling preachy or agenda-driven.

The only thing that kept it getting a higher rating from me came down to, again, my misguided expectation. I went into this thinking we'd get more history of these yoga poses (we get some!) and while I appreciated the expertise of the author in sharing what she knew and experienced in her travels and with friends regarding these animals, a lot of it was information I could have (or did) learn watching documentaries on nature channels. There were a lot more personal essays than I expected, which were nice but, again, not what I went into this book for. However, I will be going back and doing the exercises and yoga flows from this book in my own practice in the future :)

Thank you to NetGalley and North Atlantic Books for giving me advanced reader access to this in exchange for an honest review. This title publishes on June 27, 2023!

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Lovely book with some nice background information about the asanas and how they tie in with the animals. It was well set out and is a helpful book for both novices to yoga and more experienced practitioners. The only down side for me was that I read it on Kindle and I'm sure the illustrations would have looked much in a hard copy.
Thanks to NetGalley, the publishers and the author for the preview copy of this book.

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Wild Asana by Alison Zak is a deep-dive into the animals that inspire so many well-known yoga asanas. Zak weaves together tales of Indian deities, nature facts and her own personal connections to the animals that we often see in our yoga practice. My favourite was her reflections on camel pose; thinking about the ways we kneel in life but also what a connection to animals look like, in holding camel wool yarn and thinking about the particular animal that it came from. I liked that interjection of her own stories, but would have loved to see more of the Indian stories and nature research, to infuse them into my own yoga classes. But a great way to rethink the inspiration of my favourite asanas.

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Wild Asana is part wild life book, part yoga journal, and part personal memoir. In this collection of essays, anthropologist and yoga teacher Alison Zak delves into a selection of traditional asanas, drawing connections between the physical postures and their “beyond human” namesakes’ natural behaviours. The essays flow somewhat organically and sometimes meander into adjacent topics, such as knitting with natural fibres and the author’s Florida childhood.

I found some of the essays to be more engaging than others, and tended to connect more easily to the essays centred solidly around observations of wildlife behaviours. I particularly enjoyed the essays on fish, snakes, and corvids. Even in the essays I didn’t like as much, I did appreciate the author’s obviously deep love and respect for the animal kingdom. I also appreciated the references to the eight limbs of yoga, as well as Hindu mythology - often completely removed from western books on the topic.

However, though this is a lovely collection of personal essays, I do wish a little more attention had been spent on the topic of yoga itself. The text wandered a little too far off course for me in some instances.

I would recommend Wild Asana to animal lovers who practice yoga, and to yoga practitioners who love animals. It’s a bit of a niche title, but one that deserves to find its audience.

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While I appreciate what Zak is attempting to do with Wild Asana, it falls short of my expectations. There is very little information about the asana and it ends up being more like a brief history of each animal and then Zak's connection to it (ex: a very long story about knitting while talking about Ustrasana). The segments where she discusses the actual physical postures are also punctuated with person thoughts, so that if a reader was trying to feel the pose in their body, they might be waiting for the next step, and sometimes it never comes. For this reason, I suggest that this book is for people who already have a strong asana practice and wish to deepen their connection to each pose. I also found many of the drawings to be hard to read, even as a eRYT. I'm wondering why the connection to the origins of yoga asana names has been avoided as well?

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I loved the thought provoking poses introduced through this book. It was easy to follow even for a novice yoga practitioner. I enjoyed the questions and spending time in a meditation in the pose to discover my answer. I thought the book flowed really nicely and the authors personal stories were touching.

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