Book Review of Every Body Yoga: Let Go Of Fear, Get On The Mat, Love Your Body by Jessamyn Stanley

Every Body Yoga: Let Go Of Fear, Get On The Mat, Love Your Body by Jessamyn Stanley is a unique book. It is part an instructional introduction to Yoga for beginners, part confessional memoir of a self-described fat Black femme Lesbian Yoga teacher, and part body acceptance guide. In short, if you want to do Yoga and you don't look like you've just breezed out of a Lululemon ad, this book is for you.

The unique thing about Every Body Yoga is not the full-color diagrams of Yoga poses with tips on how to begin doing them and suggestions for modifying them if the picture simply looks like something your body isn't going to do. The unique thing about this book is Stanley's voice: clear, self-confident, refreshingly honest and bullshit-free, conversational, and positive. She has been through all of the struggles herself (several of which are enumerated in chapters between the sections containing 10 sequences of Yoga poses, matching those chapters' themes), and it feels like she wrote this book to tell other people that it doesn't matter what someone's conceit of a Yoga practitioner is--it only matters that they're open to the experience and not open to allowing some ignoramus to ruin it for them by body shaming them or refusing to help them modify poses to what works for them.

Stanley is constantly aware of social issues rampant in the modern Yoga business (and, she is quick to point out that what once started as a way of life has turned into a materialistic business), such as ableism, cultural appropriation, and body shaming. She has a very "you do you" attitude about the whole endeavor, and is just as quick to tell her readers what they actually do need to dip their toes into the Yoga waters (it is very little), as opposed to what people might tell them is needed, especially if those people are the same ones who sell it. Stanley also comes from a working-class poor background, so she understands that some of her readers who would love to practice yoga don't have the funds to pay drop-in fees for classes (she advocates home DIY, with guidance from the Internet and her book), or purchase much equipment (she has a clear guide on how to improvise most of the items a beginner may require. This book was a night-and-day difference from the travel packing guide I reviewed recently, because I could tell it was written for every person (from the perspective of someone who had frequently been shut out of others' short invitation lists), so she really got it when it came to things like physical limits, psychological roadblocks, body shame, and financial struggles. 

But, more than that, reading Every Body Yoga didn't just feel like a crash course in how to use Yoga to feel better and more uplifted, it felt like Stanley came off of the page and introduced herself. Her presence was undeniable! None of that "namaste" crap here--she used the f-word on the regular. Her words on the page sounded exactly as if someone's telling a friend about "this crazy thing that happened at Yoga class last week," or "here's when shit got real back in college." Readers will walk away from her book with an understanding that the door to Yoga (which they may have previously assumed was closed to them for various reasons), is open to all, and that they have an authentic person supporting them from the other side of these pages. I can't recommend this one enough! It comes out on April 4th.