Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses Book

I loved this book - until I hated it. As a matter of fact, I'll willingly admit that this book brought tears to my eyes at one point, from the shock of simple recognition. We share a parenting philosophy, Claire and I - the "I'll be the most hawk-eyed, careful parent ever and God will reward me by making sure my children are healthy" approach. And the kicker is that I didn't even know it was a parenting style, much less one held by me, until I found a passage about it in this book and had to remove myself from the elliptical machine and cry.

After that, I was more than prepared to award Dederer 5 stars, with the caveat that the stars would only be for my experience and not necessarily suggestive of your own, dear reader, because this book, really, would appeal only to a very small group of people - relatively well-off, liberal, married, intellectually-minded, part-time working mothers who regularly practice yoga. I mean, that probably seems like a huge swath of the population when you live in Portland, Oregon (or was it Seattle? I'm sorry, I confuse the two - and why wouldn't I?), like the author does, but really, it's not. Anyway, the book starts off very well. It's lucid, well-organized, insightful. It really seems like Dederer has both a good story to tell (about parenthood, about marriage, about family) and that there will be plenty of personal growth, redemption, and illumination (and maybe some humor, too) along the way. She had me cheering as she researched the history of yoga at a dusty bookshop and had an internal argument over whether the asanas ought really be recognized as "authentic" yoga, and comes to the conclusion that insight, however you find it, is worth pursuing. I'm totally on board.

But then. Oh, then the book falls apart. Or rather, it never really comes together at a deeper level, sort of like Claire's handstand practice. There's no "there" there, even though she goes all over town - and eventually, across the Rocky Mountains, to that equally insular liberal, white, bubble of Boulder, Colorado - to find deeper meaning and renewal in her life. Instead of focusing on how yoga (or parenthood, or marriage, or her childhood experiences, for that matter) opened her up and made her aware of her many, many blessings, she spends a whole lot of time shutting down everyone and anything that doesn't live up to her expectations. It's a long list that starts with her parents and in-laws (who keep coming over to help with the kids and give them treats - the nerve!), moves through her husband (who is far too interested in making money to keep the roof over everyone's heads - and Claire on her yoga mat - to be happy), her dear friends (beautiful Lisa, who had four gorgeous babies and then took to yoga herself with alarming alacrity, which brought nothing but trouble, as Claire would have us think), and, of course, the yoga studios she frequents. She has a nasty word for most of them, especially ones in strip malls, but saves her biggest diss for the "chain" studio she encounters in Boulder, where, according to her, the instructor was blonde, slim, and clueless; the students were just a bunch of bubble-headed Boulder co-eds intent on staring at themselves all class long, and the management was so worried about liabilities that, according to her, no one ever was allowed to do inversions, which was why she went to the studio in the first place - she was afraid of inversions. But then she is directed to try a handstand at said pathetic studio, and disaster (well, not really) ensues. Now, I have worked in Boulder for over a decade and we all know there's only one "chain" studio there. I know it well, because I've practiced (and taught) there for years and years. And I can you this: it's not "Ashtanga, done carelessly" - it's power yoga, and it's very well done, as leading power yoga advocates such as Baron Baptiste or Rolf Gates would tell you, since they've visited the studios on a number of occasions. Furthermore, the management encourages inversions for students who are capable, which anyone who has taken an intermediate or advanced class at this studio - or any of the dozens of workshops offered there - can tell you. Finally, no teacher at this "chain" would tell a student to "kick up" into a freaking headstand, as one of Claire's teachers supposedly told her to do! (That's a ticket to a neck injury, for sure!) Sure, maybe I'm a little sore that she was nasty about my beloved studio. But really, it's just a great example of how this book fails to take it to the next level. After all the time she spent laying out her arguments for hatha yoga, which I mentioned earlier, she turns around and proclaims a practice that she's not quite up for to be sub-par? It's the ultimate irony, and illustrates the author's egocentrism.

The final nail in the coffin is the last quarter of the book, which just turns, plain and simple, into almost laughable navelgazing. After referring repeatedly to the troubles her mother caused the family by (sort of) leaving Claire's father when Claire was about 8 for a much younger man, she finally decides that this was an act of courage, and that she and all the other women who left their husbands (well, almost left them) between 1973 and 1979 (she's weirdly specific on this) shaped a generation of women (their children), to whom the book is, in the end, apparently addressed. But how many people out there are the children of (at least quasi-) divorce (who have loving relationships with their mom, dad, and stepfather) between 1973 and 1979, and are also relatively well off, liberal, married, intellectually-minded, part-time working mothers who regularly practice yoga? Not a whole hell of a lot, I'm willing to bet. In fact, maybe only Claire Dederer herself, which forced me to conclude that this book was really just written to her, from her. Boo.

Namaste, Claire Dederer. May the next ten years of your yoga practice bring you more self-awareness than the first.