Yoga and Scoliosis: A Journey to Health and Healing

Ms. Monroe’s book, Yoga and Scoliosis, has helped me tremendously in working with my own scoliosis. Her book is clear, precise and has wonderful specific instructions that can be tried for various types of scoliosis.The biggest and most profound awareness her book has helped illuminate in myself is to identify and work directly with the “convex” and “concave” portions of my scoliosis differently. This means for me doing poses differently on each side...I came from a background of practicing yoga under various teachers, including in the Iyengar realm, and not one of them had made it so clear for me to see these convex and concave parts in myself and work differently with them in each posture.I have studied yoga under many teachers for about 10 years from various backgrounds. I have had to stop “following” and learn more of my own sensations with my scoliosis because I found many teachers just don’t know exactly what is going on in a students scoliotic body unless highly skilled in that area. Ms. Monroe shares extensive experience from her own background with her body’s scoliosis which gives her words more direct experiential weight than from teachers that don’t really know how to handle scoliosis.I refer to her book time and time again and work through the cues and see how they feel in my body, paying close attention to the difference in each side in the multi-dimensional approach that Ms. Monroe offers (as in vertical, horizontal and sagittal).I have learned with the help of her book to practice with more patience and care and find a kindness toward myself when exercising.I have been appreciative of the approach that is more physiologically based and not so much religiosity that yoga books tend to carry. Ms. Monroe’s book is mainly straight forward and practical without a religion or cult that must be joined to take what is useful. I think too often yoga books introduce the religiosity behind it which makes me want to run the other way. There is some of this in Ms. Monroe’s book, but far less and which I simply ignore to get to the practical application of what I can learn for the health of my body and mind. What I guess I mean is that with “yoga” there is always a religious quality as it is embedded in Hindu culture and antiquity. Some yoga books make the esoteric and mystical appeals more important than the practical application of simply stretching and exercising with more awareness and attention to specific issues like scoliosis.Ms. Monroe has done this well with her expertise in scoliosis through this book which I would recommend to anyone wanting to begin stretching and exercising with more awareness. I just suggest being patient and having an open mind to approach each cue she offers with curiosity in seeing how it feels for them. I have found that approach far more rewarding than trying to jam everything she says for a posture into my practice which left me feeling overwhelmed hoping I did it right instead of a more sensitive approach.Thanks Ms. Monroe! Great resource to those of us with scoliosis.

I debated between this and another scoliosis yoga book-I'm glad I got this. Yes she uses a lot of props but if you have a serious medical condition, as scoliosis can be for many people, let's face it- you gotta bite the bullet and buy at least some props and put in some time if you want to get better. There is no "Spend absolutely no money, time or effort and make a remarkable scoliosis recovery" book out there on the market. If you have scoliosis then those are the cards you have been dealt. The other woman's book on amazon looked a little too focused on the "Hollywood" culture that unfortunately surrounds yoga these days-like it's some meaningless fad. Marcia's book is a down to earth real healing tool-it doesn't spell everything out for you, but nothing real ever could-you have to listen to your own body. This book isn't about the cute little yoga outfit or getting a "yoga booty"-it's a starting point for people who have been failed by doctors and want to take matters in to their own hands...I sound like quite the firecracker don't I?ha!

This is not really what I wanted. I do not have props and straps abundant and I am confused as to how one knows they are putting these props in the right place. I looked through it and had hoped it had anatomical diagrams and an explanation of what happens to the muscular structure- I am finding doing yoga and working on my alignment without props to be helpful. It just seems like a difficult thing to do on ones own, alone- strapping all of these things to my body to stretch just does not seem practical at all. I wish I did not spend money on this, sorry- not for me.

This seems to be a very well-researched and informative book. There are numerous photos and thorough descriptions which detail how to modify yoga poses for people with scoliosis. However, it's impossible for me to judge how good it is because it's not something that I-- a solo practitioner and a layperson-- can use. There's an EXTENSIVE list of props recommended for these modifications and not just basic blocks and straps, but also stools, chairs, ropes, pulleys, bolsters, balls, etc. In the photos for several of the poses, there's also a rack of some sort to which the straps have been attached. It further gives the feel that this requires a professional set-up to follow. Each pose requires so many props and has so many directions that it isn't possible to do on one's own; just the multi-sentence directions for each pose alone requires someone to at least read to you all the things you should be doing and paying attention to. I did find some of the appendix items useful, such as the modifications you can do for sitting more comfortably at a computer. The introduction was very enticing, with its tales of people's curvatures improving dramatically through a dedicated yoga practice, especially one such as this targeted for the peculiarities of scoliosis. I have no doubt what the author says is true as I've seen my own scoliosis improve through yoga. Overall though, I was disappointed to see that this book is more of a reference guide for yoga teachers and/or physical therapists and not for the scoliosis patients themselves. If I had access to such a person and they used this book, I'm sure I would feel in very good hands indeed.