At our Yoga studio we have hundreds of books and videos. This book is referenced by every teacher on our staff. This is one of the top ten Yoga books I have ever read.
and was used as part of the required reading and foundation of a yoga fitness instructor certification that I took. As a group fitness instructor and instructor trainer, I found the information provided by James Hewitt to be a comprehensive background into the three focus areas of yoga and the information provided was very helpful during class with my students. There were only two drawbacks to this introductory book in my point of view. One was the quality of the illustrations which reminded me of something that had been photocopied and the second was that while interesting, I will say most of the Yoga of Meditation section's information was very foreign in concept to grasp.Perhaps it designed that way on purpose to provide a spark of interest in the reader to pursue further indepth study. Overall, an excellent primer into Yoga theory and practice.