“…this enjoyable to read book is about helping those who teach yoga to maximise the performance of sports people using the best of both ancient (yoga) and modern (biomechanics/anatomy) knowledge.

It shows the interconnectedness of fascia, alignment, psychology, injuries, optimising breathing and more, all the while using anecdotes that keep your attention, and teach the nuances.

Make no mistake, you need to do the work to understand it. The author, with more than 30 years of yoga experience, stresses that a knowledge of the body’s systems is vital for therapists working with athletes, wether they’re a massage therapist or yoga teachers.

However, if you are just a yoga dabbler like me, you’ll still get value and inspiration by reading it, and in surprisingly more areas than you’d think. The final chapter reveals 11 yoga poses (with B&W photos) that benefit runners most

As a coach, Jim faces Eric Orton-like yoga bias regularly. But with true eclectic spirit, he doesn’t seem to push back, but incorporates ideas from Born to Run into his teaching.”

For coaches and runners who want the benefits of yoga, this book is their Born to Yoga.

Deon Braun – Trail Magazine Editor

“When I moved to Cape Town from India, I had already been practicing and teaching yoga long enough to have been questioning the movement, and felt Westerners were sharing it with a lot of ignorance. As I became part of the yoga community in Cape Town, I used to hear about this Jim Harrington oke a lot, as if he was the bomb, and that just fed my skeptism. When I Googled him and saw his flawless advanced yoga poses, I rolled my eyes and thought pfft, just another Instagram yogi.

But I wanted to do more yoga training and eventually ended up at Jim’s ‘Alignment Redefined’ programme after not finding anything else more interesting. When I met the man, boy, was I wrong. Jim is most humble, beautiful (inside and out) and authentic, as well as funny, knowledgeable and wise. That programme changed my approach to yoga completely and helped me to let go of what yoga is supposed to look like, and instead explore how my body wants to go into positions. Many years later, the man finally put his work and solid teachings into a book, and I was honoured when asked to review it.

As a rock climber, the first thing I did when I opened the book was look for rock climbing specific content. I was disappointed when I didn’t find any, but soon discovered that it did not matter, because you can apply all the principles of the book to rock climbing. The book talks to yoga teachers and body therapists who can use the content with their students and clients, although in my opinion, the book is for anyone interested in learning about human anatomy, physiology, and sports performance. Yoga can complement any type of sport and this book is a great guide in terms of that. The book has an ‘Alignment Redefined’ theme and includes a huge chapter on it. As you progress in rock climbing, your movements need to become more specific, therefore redefining and exploring your own body’s alignment is very important. I am very impressed with how Jim explains many complicated processes in the body in such a simple fashion and wish he’d been my university lecturer when I studied Human Biology. In the book, he describes six different types of stretches, includes a bit of sport history, a chapter on understanding sports injuries and how we heal from them, breathing techniques, and even puts together a yoga programme for you. There is also a chapter on functional anatomy lines, functional movement, as well as psychology and mental training. Lastly, the book is firmly grounded in evidence and scientific research and packed with information, and not an airy-fairy yoga book with pretty pictures of Jim (like I had hoped for).”

An excerpt from the book: ‘Yoga doesn’t have to be beautiful, it should feel beautiful on the inside because it is balanced and poised.’ And this is how rock climbing should feel. Improve your movement on rock, get Yoga for Sports Performance.

Alta Laurette – SA Mountain Magazine