Teaching Yoga ─ Essential Foundations and Techniques

Teaching Yoga is an essential resource for all yoga teachers and students interested in refining their skills and expanding their knowledge of yoga. Enhanced with nearly 200 instructional photos and illustrations, this comprehensive book is ideal for use as a core textbook in teacher training programs. Readers will find practical and detailed information on teaching methods, sequencing principles, the fundamentals of 108 poses (asanas), and techniques for teaching meditation and breathing (pranayama). Yoga philosophy and history as well as traditional and modern aspects of anatomy are also covered. Author Mark Stephens, an esteemed yoga teacher and teacher trainer, offers guidance through the process involved in becoming a teacher and sustaining oneself in the profession. A useful appendix lists associations, institutes, organizations, and professional resources for yoga teachers.

"Mark Stephens, a teacher of teachers, has created a comprehensive and inspiring guide for yoga teachers and serious practitioners alike. In these pages, he offers us the fruit of his years of rigorous practice, his deep contemplation, and his understanding of what really matters in yoga. Filled with tips and secrets for finding the inner core of asana, gently but firmly puncturing myths, this book is a brilliant merger of traditional wisdom with contemporary rigor and insight. It should be on the shelf of everyone who loves the practice of yoga."---Sally Kempton, Yoga Journal's "Wisdom" columnist and author of The Heart of Meditation: Pathways to a Deeper Experience

"Comprehensive, deeply insightful, and chock full of tips and techniques for teaching and doing yoga, Mark Stephens's Teaching Yoga will be required reading for yoga teachers, teacher trainers, and serious students alike. We heartily recommend this essential new contribution to the conscious evolution of yoga."---Joel Kramer, coauthor with Diana Alstad of The Passionate Mind Revisited: Expanding Personal and Social Awareness

"Yoga teachers and their students will love this book. Mark Stephens untangles the complexities of yoga philosophy, history, and energetics; offers clear and compelling techniques for teaching and exploring asanas, pranayama, and meditation; and gives teachers a rich array of practical tools for planning and sequencing classes, working with diverse students, and teaching with integrity and authenticity. Teaching Yoga should be in the hands of every teacher and dedicated student."---Seane Corn, yoga teacher and founder of Off the Mat, Into the World

An esteemed yoga instructor who has trained over 700 yoga teachers, Mark Stephens conducts classes, workshops, and retreats worldwide. The founder of Yoga Inside Foundation, L.A. Yoga Center, and the recipient of Yoga Journal's first annual Karma Yoga Award in 2000, he lives and teaches in Santa Cruz, CA.

Foreword contributor Mariel Hemingway is an actress and longtime yoga practitioner and teacher.