Beryl Bender Birch Power Yoga The Practice
Demand for these DVD”s is at an all-time high following international workshops and the best-selling books, Power Yoga and Beyond Power Yoga! Power Yoga is the best-selling yoga book in the United States and has been for the past 8 years - now on its fifth printing. Nearly 300,000 copies sold to date! The DVD & VHS were created to serve as the companions to the book.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Great DVD
This is a wonderful DVD… Beryl has been around forever.. Gotta love her Ashtanga background. Also check out TAMARA’S YOGA FUSION
5 Stars Beryl is amazing!
I’ve owned this book for a while, since I started practicing yoga 7 years ago, but I recently took a three day workshop with Beryl and was inspired to reread it. I couldn’t have appreciated the layers of wisdom in this book back when I was a beginner ashtangi. I no longer primarily practice asthanga, preferring heated power yoga instead, but this is the best general introduction to that form and the basics of yoga philosophy. I feel that Baron Baptiste’s _Journey into Power_ is the best place for beginners because his sequence is more accessible, for nonyogis and westerners in general (let’s face it, vrkasana is far more safe and accessible than ardha baddha padmottanasana) .
Beryl writes much better than Baron, however, and introduces much of the important history and philosophy, so I think this book would be an ideal second book to read. Beryl is the best, I think, at explaining the mental side of yoga, the breath, and so forth. The first chapter is filled with extremely valuable insight after insight on how the mind/body reacts, resists, focuses, and surrenders. What she has to say here is eloquent, beautiful, profound, and true.
I find her instructions for the poses to be full of valuable information, but the book is somewhat awkward to use while practicing. While Baron’s book has nice color photos, different colored headings, to make it easy to follow, the layout editors or designers did not do nearly so well with this book.
For actually doing the practice Beryl describes (the primary series), I *highly* recommend that you also buy a copy of David Swenson’s _Asthanga Yoga: The Practice Manual_. It has great, clear, high quality photos, is spiral bound so that it lays flat next to your mat, has one pose per facing pages or so, and the essential instructions. But, on its own, it won’t do, because it has no introduction to speak of and the instructions are too minimal–one must refer back to Beryl. The two books need each other. Plus, Swenson covers the entire intermediate series, which Beryl just introduces.
After this, one should move on to Beyond Power Yoga, to go further down the rabbit hole of the topics raised in the introduction to this book. But the photos in it are awful–they are all jagged and pixellated like jpeg thumbnails displayed full screen, so bad that you can’t see the details of the poses, like hand position, etc. If the design on the first book was mediocre, the design of the second is appalling. I can’t believe they sell it that way. The person in charge should be fired and they should send replacement copies to all owners, along with an apology fruit basket. Seriously. Beryl’s text in the second book is, however, great. I also recommend her meditation CD.
5 Stars A very good Ashtanga Yoga DVD
This is an Ashtanga Yoga DVD. For those who are not familiar with Ashtanga (or Astanga) yoga, it includes lots of Sun Salutations. If you don’t want to do lots of Sun Salutations do not purchase this DVD or any other Ashtanga DVD. I think this is an excellent DVD. I attend live Ashtanga classes when I can, but love the convenience of yoga DVDs. I own several other Ashtanga DVDs and love them all. I love that she adds a few extra asanas to the routine that are not normally in the primary series (such as crane pose). The class consists of students in a variety of shapes, sizes and abilities. Therefore, modifications are shown. This is a great DVD to add to your collection.
5 Stars Not Just Another “Power” Yoga Practice
I have to take issue with Cafreen’s review. I strongly suspect that the majority of people who buy this DVD will find the workout to be vigorous rather than moderate. As noted by Jumpuphigh (see the 2 comments posted comments in reply to Cafreen’s review) this workout is the Primary Series of the Ashtanga yoga practice. The order of poses in the Primary series never varies. The benefit, or power, in the workout arises out of the way the poses are sequenced (the specific logic of which is beyond the scope of this review). BB Berch did not create the 1.5 hour sequence, known in Sanskrit as “yoga chikitsa” or “yoga therapy”. It was developed in India by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois, a renowned Sanskrit scholar and yogi. HIS mentor was Krishnamacharya, who, in the early 1900’s, also taught Iyengar, and Desikarchar. All 3 students went on to popularize and to become the primary influences in the transmission of yoga to the West. Decades ago, back when BB Berch first coined the term “power yoga”, other vinyasa (or flow) style practices that use the term to denote a vigorous, flowing yoga style did not yet exist to create the confusion that the term now often engenders.
Cafreen mentions the series of seated poses that occur mid-practice, but doesn’t add that a vinyasa (consisting of a jump-back into Chattaranga Dandasana - the bottom or lowered portion of a push-up - moving up into Downward Dog, from which you jump your legs between and through your hands, (ideally) landing on your bottom) is inserted between every half pose (i.e., a pose done to one side) in order to maintain the heat of the practice throughout the seated sequence. Moreover, in the Ashtanga system, holding the bandhas (or “locks” which in the Primary Series consist of mullah bandha [keeping the muscles that form the floor of the perineum lifted] and udyadha bandha [lifting and engaging of the lower abdominal muscles]) and maintaining a controlled form of breathing called ujayii during the entire sequence are important for “keeping up the heat”. Although it is an intense workout, practiced yogis should not find it to be a cardiovascular workout.
The fact that Cafreen found it to be a moderate workout makes me suspect that she may be relatively new to yoga and may not have received any in-depth instruction on correct alignment. As an instructor, I’ve found that the majority of students who began in vinyasa-style traditions practice poses incorrectly, reinforcing habitual patterns of mis-alignment, which makes poses easier to perform, but ultimately causes us to miss out on one of the most powerful means by which yoga benefits practitioners. By the way, long before I was an instructor, I was one of those students who fell in love with yoga, having been introduced via a vigorous, flowing practice (the Primary Series of Ashtanga, not coincidentally). I then spent almost 2 endurance-building years in which I performed sloppy, ill-executed versions of postures that looked much like they looked the first times I’d tried them. When I first encountered an Iyengar-trained teacher (Iyengar yoga is extremely detail- and alignment-oriented school of practice) who focused on my form (or lack thereof), many of the poses in which I considered myself practiced, became quite a bit more difficult…and they have remained challenging, because there is no such thing as the perfected yoga pose. Ultimately, yoga is not about obtaining a cardiovascular high, but is about uniting movement and breath, balancing effort and surrender, learning to pay attention, to observe, and to stay present in the moment. BB Birch’s book of the same name serves as a companion to the DVD workout and is an excellent source for learning more about the fundamentals therein - from what separates yoga from other forms of physical exercise to sequencing and alignment basics underlying the Ashtanga practice.
1 Star Pointless sun salutes and too many downward dogs
This yoga video is a fabulous example of how a possibly decent yoga class makes for a drudging and possibly injury-provoking video. If the instructor were watching her students she would realize that not everybody can move at the same pace, but because her “students” are the people watching the video at home, she has no idea if they are keeping up with her or not. Yes, I know she’s actually teaching a class on the DVD, but even some of them have trouble keeping up with the routine and she doesn’t seem to slow down.
And about that: every other yoga video I’ve watched and done is taught by someone who is doing the routine while they tell you about it. She is merely walking around her class talking (and unnecessarily touching some of the more attractive members under the premise of “helping” them with their poses) while they do the hard work. Could it be that maybe the routine is too hard for her? It would have been much more effective without the class there and if she had just done it all herself.
The sun salute section went on entirely too long, it was quite annoying to do downward dog after every pose, and not good for the wrists to move in and out of it so quickly. I much prefer Rodney Yee’s videos and instruction.