“Yoga Instruction For Relaxation and Good Health, Vol. 2″ 1971. Conversa-phone Institute. Vinyl + yoga = two of my main interests and fortunately I have friends who find weird shit and pass it along to me. OMG this record is a piece of work. Instructed by Harry Alister of the New Jersey School of Professional Dance & Drama, this second volume of yoga instruction (I don’t have the first one but there is a big warning by Harry at the start of the record that one should be well-practiced in Volume 1 before attempting this record’s instruction) is definitely nothing like the classic yoga instruction I’ve received and teach. After listing a litany of things yoga can help “cure” (stress, constipation, heart problems, etc.), he has the practitioner stand with heels together and toes turned out (NO!!), “pinch” the buttocks (NO NO) and tuck under the tail (again, NO). There is almost zero breath instruction – the key component that makes yoga, well, yoga.

Side 1 (after the horrible Tadasana/Mountain teaching) is pretty much all back bends: half and full locust pose with a bunch of leg lifts, leg scissors, breast stroking and even leg bouncing. Cobra pose is instructed as badly as the cover photo on this album would indicate (my neck and shoulders hurt just looking at her), cueing the head to be thrown back and the eyes rolled back in their sockets. And then Side A concludes with a rocking variation of Dhanurasana/Bow pose with absolutely no prior thigh, hip flexor or shoulder mobilization,. Ugh.

Side B is mostly animal exercises, including cat pose (at least it’s cued to move slowly without jerking movements) but with zero inhale/exhales indicated – just the instructions to “hump, arch;” rabbit or hare pose (one of my least favorite postures in yoga but at least here there is actually some breathing cues given); frog (but not traditional frog but rather the pose that is pictured front-and-center on the album cover, a position of the legs and knees which is NOT recommended for good knee health); “the head of the cow pose” which “helps to preserve the youthfulness of the face” (it actually is a good pose for maintaining shoulder mobility, I’ve never heard anyone say anything about its benefits for the face); and lion pose (also pictured on the cover, by the male yogi) for “improving the health of the root of the tongue.” Lion pose is one rarely taught in group classes because it’s goofy as hell but I remember my mom practicing it a lot at home in the 70′s – I thought it was goofy back then, too. After the animal postures, Alister spends a good amount of time on the facial muscles – clearly there was a lot of concern about how good one looked doing yoga back in the early 70′s. Example of face yoga instruction: “With the lips together twist the mouth to the right and then to the left. Now open the mouth wide. Pucker the lips. Open wide. Pucker. Frown. Relax. Smile. Relax.” He concludes the face yoga section by saying “These exercise are not guaranteed to produce extreme beauty but they will add to the youthfulness of your looks and save you from discontentment.”

No links to hear this gem that I could find but there are few copies for sale out there on Ebay and Etsy. A couple of those come with the original manual with “over 40 photographic illustrations” that this copy does not have.