by Claire Dederder

Because I long to be a yogini one day, I am fascinated with people’s stories about how they came to practice yoga and how (or if) their lives changed.

Claire Dederer, a freelance writer living in Seattle, started taking yoga after she threw her back out breastfeeding (!!!) her young daughter. Although she definitely is a product of the “crunchy” Northwest – kids in a co-op preschool, having the right organic diet – she had no desire to practice in a yoga studio with Tibetan flags and incense burning.  She just wanted relief for her back.

I loved that she visited several different studios and teachers piecing together the perfect practice for herself. And each chapter is named after a specific yoga pose which Dederer then relates to some aspect of her life.  For example, the chapters on Child’s Pose (there’s more than one) have her reflecting on her childhood and choices her parents made for her.  Mountain Pose is the perfect opportunity to talk about the year that she and her husband and children spend living away from Seattle and their friends & family atop a mountain outside of Boulder, Colorado.