"Waking" by Matthew Sanford
Several issues ago Yoga Chicago published an article about a yoga teacher who was a paraplegic, I skimmed through it as I do with most articles and thought "How interesting," using this article at times as a basis for discussion of body awareness, and the fives steps of a pose (one being thinking about the pose and how just thinking and connecting the mind to the pose can be important even if you can not fully articulate the asana).
Recently during a discussion of books for yogis to read, Matthew Sanford’s Waking came up as a unique exploration into what it means to practice yoga. The reviews from those who had read it were all similar – an amazing story, a must read. A few of the individuals had actually seen Sanford speak and they commented that when you looked at him, whether in a pose or a chair, how his legs looked different than those of others with similar disabilities – his legs looked "alive".
Taking this all in, I decided to head to the local library to see if they had a copy. They had two – a good sign. I read the book in an afternoon because it was simply written, no crazy literary tricks or flashbacks, flash forwards that got in the way. I don’t want to unfold the story to others so here are the bits that count: it is a memoir, it isn’t preachy about yoga (in fact yoga really wasn’t as large a part of the book as I thought it would be), if you have feelings you will most likely bawl like a baby (and sadly not until the late middle or end of the book – it creeps up on you), you may become disgusted with the allopathic medical model so beware (there were times I wanted to scream into the pages "sue, sue, medical malpractice" – but keep in mind some of these occurrences had to have been close to 30 years ago.
This was not a life changing book for me. I can’t point to a page and say, "There. There is where I realized something deep about life", but that does not mean it is not without merit or cause to reflect. Sanford truly touched on some deep issues regarding life and death, but they were already issues I struggle with so an "Aha" moment did not occur for me. I put this book down with the feeling that although destiny and fate may not control our lives (I believe we have a certain amount of free will), there are definitely currents on which our lives sail.
I give this book a 6 star rating:
