Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga

2012-10-30 Health & Fitness

Author : Benjamin Lorr
Release : 2012-10-30
Genre : Health & Fitness
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 521/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga by : Benjamin Lorr

Download or read book Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga written by Benjamin Lorr. This book was released on 2012-10-30. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Author Benjamin Lorr wandered into a yoga studio—and fell down a rabbit hole Hell-Bent explores a fascinating, often surreal world at the extremes of American yoga. Benjamin Lorr walked into his first yoga studio on a whim, overweight and curious, and quickly found the yoga reinventing his life. He was studying Bikram Yoga (or "hot yoga") when a run-in with a master and competitive yoga champion led him into an obsessive subculture—a group of yogis for whom eight hours of practice a day in 110- degree heat was just the beginning. So begins a journey. Populated by athletic prodigies, wide-eyed celebrities, legitimate medical miracles, and predatory hucksters, it's a nation-spanning trip—from the jam-packed studios of New York to the athletic performance labs of the University of Oregon to the stage at the National Yoga Asana Championship, where Lorr competes for glory. The culmination of two years of research, and featuring hundreds of interviews with yogis, scientists, doctors, and scholars, Hell-Bent is a wild exploration. A look at the science behind a controversial practice, a story of greed, narcissism, and corruption, and a mind-bending tale of personal transformation, it is a book that will not only challenge your conception of yoga, but will change the way you view the fragile, inspirational limits of the human body itself.

The Secret Life of Groceries

2021-11-09 Social Science

Author : Benjamin Lorr
Release : 2021-11-09
Genre : Social Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 414/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Secret Life of Groceries by : Benjamin Lorr

Download or read book The Secret Life of Groceries written by Benjamin Lorr. This book was released on 2021-11-09. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A deeply curious and evenhanded report on our national appetites." --The New York Times In the tradition of Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore's Dilemma, an extraordinary investigation into the human lives at the heart of the American grocery store The miracle of the supermarket has never been more apparent. Like the doctors and nurses who care for the sick, suddenly the men and women who stock our shelves and operate our warehouses are understood as 'essential' workers, providing a quality of life we all too easily take for granted. But the sad truth is that the grocery industry has been failing these workers for decades. In this page-turning expose, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on the highly secretive grocery industry. Combining deep sourcing, immersive reporting, and sharp, often laugh-out-loud prose, Lorr leads a wild investigation, asking what does it take to run a supermarket? How does our food get on the shelves? And who suffers for our increasing demands for convenience and efficiency? In this journey: We learn the secrets of Trader Joe's success from Trader Joe himself Drive with truckers caught in a job they call "sharecropping on wheels" Break into industrial farms with activists to learn what it takes for a product to earn certification labels like "fair trade" and "free range" Follow entrepreneurs as they fight for shelf space, learning essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food business Journey with migrants to examine shocking forced labor practices through their eyes The product of five years of research and hundreds of interviews across every level of the business, The Secret Life of Groceries is essential reading for those who want to understand our food system--delivering powerful social commentary on the inherently American quest for more and compassionate insight into the lives that provide it.

Hell-Bent

2013-01-03 Hatha yoga

Author : Benjamin Lorr
Release : 2013-01-03
Genre : Hatha yoga
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 392/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Hell-Bent by : Benjamin Lorr

Download or read book Hell-Bent written by Benjamin Lorr. This book was released on 2013-01-03. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hell-Bent explores the fascinating, often surreal world of Bikram Yoga, a style taught to millions by a very living guru, Bikram Choudhury. Bikram Yoga is distinguished from more 'conventional' forms by the extreme heat it is practised in, an overt, almost masochistic focus on pain, and the rabid materialism of its founder. It is also distinguished by impressive results - sport stars such as David Beckham and Andy Murray swear by it, while body-conscious supermodels rave about its benefits, and even Prince Harry is rumoured to be a fan. Benjamin Lorr walked into his first yoga studio on a whim, overweight and curious, and quickly found the yoga reinventing his life. He was content to slim down and tone up until a run-in with a competitive yoga champion convinced him to take his practice to the next level: to train for the national championship. So begins a journey into the strange, amazing world of competitive yoga. Populated by athletic prodigies, wide-eyed celebrities, medical miracles, and predatory hucksters, Hell-Bent follows Lorr as he grapples with his new obsession: researching the health claims and history, humanising its maniacal guru, and eventually stepping on stage at the National Asana Championship to compete for glory. The culmination of two years of research, featuring hundreds of interviews with yogis, scientists, doctors and scholars, Hell-Bent is a wild exploration. A look at the science behind a controversial practice, a story of greed and corruption, and a mind-bending tale of personal transformation, it is a book that will not only challenge your conception of yoga, but change the way you view the fragile, inspirational potential of the human body.

The Subtle Body

2011-05-24 Health & Fitness

Author : Stefanie Syman
Release : 2011-05-24
Genre : Health & Fitness
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 840/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis The Subtle Body by : Stefanie Syman

Download or read book The Subtle Body written by Stefanie Syman. This book was released on 2011-05-24. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Subtle Body, Stefanie Syman tells the surprising story of yoga's transformation from a centuries-old spiritual discipline to a multibillion-dollar American industry. Yoga's history in America is longer and richer than even its most devoted practitioners realize. It was present in Emerson's New England, and by the turn of the twentieth century it was fashionable among the leisure class. And yet when Americans first learned about yoga, what they learned was that it was a dangerous, alien practice that would corrupt body and soul. A century later, you can find yoga in gyms, malls, and even hospitals, and the arrival of a yoga studio in a neighborhood is a signal of cosmopolitanism. How did it happen? It did so, Stefanie Syman explains, through a succession of charismatic yoga teachers, who risked charges of charlatanism as they promoted yoga in America, and through generations of yoga students, who were deemed unbalanced or even insane for their efforts. The Subtle Body tells the stories of these people, including Henry David Thoreau, Pierre A. Bernard, Margaret Woodrow Wilson, Christopher Isherwood, Sally Kempton, and Indra Devi. From New England, the book moves to New York City and its new suburbs between the wars, to colonial India, to postwar Los Angeles, to Haight-Ashbury in its heyday, and back to New York City post-9/11. In vivid chapters, it takes in celebrities from Gloria Swanson and George Harrison to Christy Turlington and Madonna. And it offers a fresh view of American society, showing how a seemingly arcane and foreign practice is as deeply rooted here as baseball or ballet. This epic account of yoga's rise is absorbing and often inspiring—a major contribution to our understanding of our society.

Bikram Yoga

2007-04-03 Health & Fitness

Author : Bikram Choudhury
Release : 2007-04-03
Genre : Health & Fitness
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 089/5 ( reviews)

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Book Synopsis Bikram Yoga by : Bikram Choudhury

Download or read book Bikram Yoga written by Bikram Choudhury. This book was released on 2007-04-03. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bikram, the "hot yoga" program, has been heating up the yoga world lately, and its founder probably has something to do with it: The outspoken, dramatic, and always controversial Bikram Choudhury has garnered a lot of attention with his version of hatha yoga that some yogis think unorthodox: In his classes, students are stuck in a room heated to at least 105 degrees doing a structured program of 26 asanas with a sergeant–like instructor––and they love it. Bikram Yoga will emulate that same energy. With his take–no–prisoners philosophy, Bikram describes how the program can reap great medical, physical, and spiritual benefits––the poses work out every part of the body, all of which can help alleviate many common ailments, from asthma to back pain. (Photographs will accompany each pose.) In addition, the book offers the best ways to incorporate eastern philosophy into a western lifestyle and tips on how yoga can cultivate "a union between body and spirit." Simply put, you don't have to meditate passively to reap the benefits of yoga.

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