Walking Stick Yoga: Danda Pada Yoga or “The Path of the Staff”

By Dr. Lori Marsh, Ph.D. and Amber Johnson

Whether you have a regular yoga practice, or this is your first inquiry into yoga, by reading this book you have the potential to embark on a new life habit.

This fully illustrated volume, featuring over 40 full-color photos by Amber Johnson of Urth Photography, addresses the basic message from the yogic tradition that the postures should be stable, one should be able to hold them for an extended period, and they should have the twin qualities of both effort and effortlessness – or initial striving and relaxing into. Using supportive staffs or trekking poles while practicing yoga postures allows one to bring the qualities of stability and ease into each posture.

Struggles with balance are immediately removed, and the resultant ease allows unneeded muscles (such as those of the jaw and face) to relax. Practitioners will find that the ability to hold a pose is greatly enhanced.

The poses in this book offer a wonderful and very accessible gateway to the present moment, supporting mental wellbeing which, in turn, makes us happier, less self-centered, and brings us into greater connection with others.

All you need to practice Walking Stick Yoga is a pair of walking poles and a commitment to open yourself to the experience.

Walking Stick Yoga can be done almost anywhere and is particularly suited to the outdoors. Practicing standing postures using walking sticks requires neither smooth ground nor perfectly clean ground. In fact, taking a walk outdoors with sticks prior to, or immediately following, a Walking Stick Yoga practice greatly enhances one’s exercise regime.

All proceeds from this title go to InStill Mindfulness, in support of their efforts to cultivate a mindful world for all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilder Publications, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781515447429

Dr. Lori Marsh, Ph.D.

Lori Marsh, PhD is the Chair of InStill Mindfulness. She earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University in Agricultural and Biological Engineering, and served on the faculty of the Biological Systems Engineering Department at Virginia Tech for 15 years before becoming a Research Associate Professor in the university’s Food Science and Technology Department. She is now as an Adjunct Professor in the Math and Statistics Department at Radford University. She became interested in yoga and eastern philosophy after hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2000, and has completed a Yoga Alliance Certified yoga teacher training and taught yoga for several years. Yoga led her to meditation, and she is a member of a New River Valley sangha and attends meditation retreats annually. Her daughter is an ordained Buddhist nun in Myanmar, where they have spent months together in retreat, immersing themselves in a wide range of teachings in the Theravada tradition.

Book preview

Montem

Montem donated a dozen sets of trekking poles to help get Walking Stick Yoga started, and are also offering a 10% discount for anyone making a first purchase through them.

To receive the discount - or simply to purchase your trekking poles to participate in this program - please click on this link, and use the discount code LNT10.

Thank you, Montem. 

And thank you.

Introduction

Yoga is a word from Sanskrit, which translates to yoke or to join. Yoga is a philosophical system devised thousands of years ago in pre-India by a culture striving to understand the human condition. The logical question then follows, to Yoke or join what? Yoga (joining) occurs on many levels, from union of movement and breath, to union of the individual with all that is. Yoga allows us to experience a deep connection with everything around