The Essential Low Back Program: Relieve Pain and Restore Health
Robin Rothenberg
Pacific Institute Yoga Therapy
Reviewed by Felicia M. Tomasko, RN
The Essential Low Back Program: Relieve Pain and Restore Health
What does it mean for a therapeutic Yoga CD set to state that its effects are clinically proven? For Rothenberg’s Essential Low Back Program, the endorsement refers to Karen Sherman’s much-lauded 2005 article published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which Rothenberg worked on and which this program is based. Yoga study participants reported a 78% reduction in pain. One component of this set that makes it an important contribution to therapeutic practice is that it is more than a repetition of the study sequences. Rothenberg draws on her research experiences and her decades applying the principles and practices of Viniyoga.
The CD set and accompanying booklet features five different practices with five different people who have varying causes and expressions of low back pain. As Rothenberg points out in the video and printed materials, causes for low back pain vary. With appropriate Yoga practices to help stretch and strengthen the musculature along the spine, such as those demonstrated in the Essential Low Back Program, back pain can be alleviated.
Rothenberg’s expert instruction shines in the videos and her teaching is easy to follow. People utilizing the set can choose the practice based on their particular experience or on what sequence works for them. This educational set is helpful for Yoga teachers and therapists looking for tools to assist students or to explain anatomy and sequences. Students will benefit from the guided, gentle yet profound practices. Beginners will find this an appropriate introduction and people already familiar with the practice will find many bright gems.www.essentialyogatherapy.com
Yoga Short & Sweet
Eve Baldwin
Reviewed by Lori Denman
Yoga Short & Sweet
When we get busy, it can be challenging to find the time for a complete Yoga practice. Hollywood-based Yoga teacher Eve Baldwin has a solution: Yoga Short & Sweet, a fifty-seven-minute DVD program with practices broken down into five ten-minute segments and two two minute meditation practices. With Short and Sweet, beginners and busy people can no longer beg off the practice, citing a lack of time. A ten-minute practice is manageable and can be inserted into the most impacted day.
In order to create a healing environment in Short & Sweet, Baldwin draws on her professional experience as a member of the healing arts community since 1995 (in addition to being a Yoga teacher, Baldwin is a massage and craniosacral therapist who is currently studying energy medicine). Her calm clear voice is a confident guide to the practice.
Viewers choose from the five segments according to their mood and energy level, depending on whether they’re feeling: Relaxed Energy, Calm Mind, Vibrant Health, Inner Power or the hot Inner Sexy. The creative visuals stimulate the senses and are inviting and playful. The colors set the mood for the practices. Baldwin is bathed in green light for calm mind, and the bright yellow mat in Vibrant Health evokes the warm sun of a summer afternoon.
I highly recommend Yoga Short & Sweet for everyone; especially those who wish to add a touch of creativity to their practice. Baldwin has also produced it with an eye to the environment, using 100 percent recycled materials and printed with soy-based ink. She launched the DVD while on the 2008 Yoga Month tour, in a convincing show of the fact that Yoga is sweet, indeed. www.YogaShortandSweet.com
By Media Reviewers
