Basic Yoga for Everybody: Kit: 84 Cards with Accompanying Handbook [With 84 Color-Coded Cards]

by Gertrud Hirschi

Book Overview

No more trying to turn pages of a book while standing on your head! Instead pick eight illustrated, instructive cards and place them in front of you while you work each yoga position. "Deal" out... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1578631033
• ISBN13: 9781578631032
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Weiser Books
• Length: 72 Pages
• Weight: 0.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Inaccurate description!

This book was stated to have 84 cards describing poses with it. It did not. Even the book does not have good info re asanas. Very disappointed.

No cards

This was supposed to come with cards and it didn't. The entire reason I bought this was for the deck of cards so this was a huge disappointment.

Just book no cards

Description states book and cards but only recieved book. This is not useful.

Perfect Purchase

Another good buy. I love this deck. It is colorful, informative, inspiring. The little guide book and cards format are really convenient, informative. Easy for beginners. Great format for sharing with others. I will have fun with this for years. Did I say colorful, fun, and informative yet? Absolutely. All that. Inspiring too, because each card has a meditation suggestion on it, the graphics are smooth, and you can arrange them in any sequence you like following the constructive advice from the book to get a really nice hatha yoga experience. Timeless.

an all time favorite

I had this yoga deck years ago, lost it in a move, and can never quite forget them. It is lovely to be able to find it and purchase it again. It is colorful, effective-in that there are loose cards that can easily be referred to during practice, allows for personal creative input as you follow the instructions, inspiring, and therefore contributes to keeping up one's yoga practice.

A superb, beautiful system of yoga

Gertrud Hirschi teaches yoga in Switzerland and has been influenced deeply by Selvarajan Yesudian who taught yoga in that country for many years. The system of constructing a personalized daily yoga practice she presents is superb! It includes balancing, breathing, and meditation exercises as well as standard hatha yoga postures. Color-coding permits you to construct a practice that balances all of the seven main chakras. Indeed, by doing three of the pranayama exercises from chapter 5, one exercise from each of the "colors", and a meditation, you can design a practice that is very much like those that Yesudian used in his school. This system really works! I've been doing yoga off and on for forty years and it has been a major healing modality for me as I've been recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome (cfs). With cfs my energy levels and muscular capabilities can fluctuate a great deal, and using Hirschi's system, I've almost always been able to maintain a balanced yoga practice even with these fluctuations. This work has been a real blessing! I might point out that there is no contradiction involved in Hirschi's "basic rule," on p 24. While you can select one exercise from each color, all of chapter 2 indicates that once you've chosen the exercises some sequences are more helpful than others. Hirschi gives an excellent discussion of how to structure sequences that "flow" together well. The rule on p. 24 should be taken in this spirit. Moreover, that rule takes place in the context of compensation exercises and need not be considered as applying to all exercises. Two other points, with this system I've been able to adapt my practice to the times I travel. In particular, I find it practical not to lie prone or supine on motel/hotel floors. With this system I can create a balanced practice session with mostly standing postures. A big help!! Hirschi has also written a very nice book on mudra yoga, and I incorporate the mudra meditations from that book with my yoga practice based on this book. This really gives a very complete, balanced yoga practice. I enthusiastically recommend both of her books

Great Idea, Useful In Many Ways, But Not Well Executed!

I gave this Yoga Card Set 4 Stars in spite of my comments in the Title. Overall I really do like the way the structure of the set works. Their are many really interesting poses, some I've not seen before (and I've been doing Yoga daily for 7 years, have a great teacher, a library of Yoga books and over 70 videos). I like using the idea that she grouped "like" poses by colour, these are categorized by the type of movements they use (forward bends, back bends etc). This helps a lot with structuring the sequence of the poses and gives a lot of room for creativity in structuring one's practice. The little companion book is nicely written and clear as far as how to use the cards and considerations for sequencing. However the cards themselves are not very user friendly. The pictures are vague drawings and often don't seem to be showing what the written instructions often indicate. Even the instructions themselves are not very clear on many of the cards either. What would have been nice is if the book had each pose with a detailed description of the pose plus photographs, then the cards could just be used as summaries. Unfortunately because you are limited to the small amount of instruction on the cards you don't get enough information to work with. As a person with a lot of experience with Yoga I feel that at least sometimes I can "read between the lines" to a point and yet there are still some things that leave me confused. I think someone without any experience of yoga would be completely lost. Still, I gave the four stars because I have found benefits to this set overall in spite of it's shortcomings. Namaste

What a great idea!

This is a WONDERFUL set! The cards allow you to design your own yoga sequences and they are color coded for the chakras they emphasize. They make you slap your forehead and say "Why didn't I think of that?" Just the thing I've been looking for to help me wean off the video tapes.