Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title for my honest review.

This book is definitely not going to appeal to everyone. It was more of a personal perspective approach to the topic than I was expecting. As a practitioner for over 15 years, I have personally researched and looked into many of the aspects and history of yoga that is presented in the book. I did like the fact there was history in here that I had not known yet and was able to learn. However, this book I think will appeal more to people who already think the way that the author does about yoga.

First, I want to thank NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in return for an honest review. 

This book is deeply personal for the author and certainly reflects in the very heartfelt, emotional writing.
It's much more a memoir and love letter to yoga than a nonfiction book focused on teaching you objective yoga facts.
I can see and appreciate all the thought and especially love that was put into this book. However, I fear this is a book for people that already feel the same about yoga as the auhtor does. It's not really a book for people that wanna get into yoga or are simply interested to learn some yoga facts. Atleast that was my experience with the book.

If there was one glorious thing that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was my entry into the world of yoga. I'd long been both intrigued and intimidated by yoga, a spiritual practice that in my mind was primarily for the able-bodied hipster able to twist themselves into the variety of positions and practices called for in the yoga I had in my mind.

Of course, this is NOT actually yoga. It's the American commodification of yoga. Harpinder Kaur Mann is a yoga, meditation, and mindfulness teacher who also has become quite the decolonizing activist. She is an Indian-American who grounds her practice within her spiritual roots of Sikhism and Buddhism. Her practice primarily focuses on women of color seeking to reclaim their power and intuition "through the lens of a spiritual, joyful, and sustainable path."

Throughout "Liberating Yoga," that's precisely what Mann does - she liberates yoga from its commodification and from its utilization solely as a fitness practice. I first attended a virtual class, a result of the largely shut down society that happened when the pandemic hit. I was struck by how the instructor, realizing I was a wheelchair user with physical limits, gently worked to adapt her teaching to my own physical situation. It was a remarkable act of compassion and tenderness.

I began attending other classes, sometimes virtual and other times in person. Of course, I did not always find that compassion nor that inclusion. At times, I found instructors who seemed frustrated by my presence. I was clearly different from the others in attendance.

I persevered.

While I couldn't put words to it, I also found myself frustrated by the obvious appropriation of what is clearly a spiritual practice. Yoga IS a spiritual practice. While it may have physical benefits, it was never intended as a fitness practice and yet, as we Americans so often do, it became appropriated because it was easier to commodify within the world of fitness. People don't typically pay high prices and where fancy outfits for spiritual practices.

Okay, maybe the Pope.

"Liberating Yoga" is a joy-filled, disciplined reading experience in which Mann gently yet courageously calls out this commodification - especially her own experiences of exploring yoga centers, both as student and as teacher, where she would often be the sole woman of color and often the only one truly seeking to get to the spiritual core of yoga. Beyond catchphrases, "Namaste" or "OM" anyone, these classes were often offering little more than a tightening of the glutes or any other part of the body.

Again, Mann reminds us, that's simply not yoga.

Mann often writes about the accessibility of yoga for all bodies (I will confess I wish disability had been mentioned specifically) and how she now very intentionally teaches from a place of both addressing wellness and spiritual needs. In both practice and here in writing, Mann teaches from a place of offering a safe place to feel grounded, connected, and loved.

While "Liberating Yoga" won't likely appeal to everyone, especially those who embrace its commodification, for those who long for the more spiritual and healing core of yoga this will be a marvelous experience filled with refreshing spirit, immense hope, much love, and absolute connection.