Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
4th out of 13 books
—
23 voters
Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude
by
Neal Pollack (Goodreads Author)
The hilarious true account of an overweight, balding, skeptical guy's unexpected transformation into a healthy, blissful yoga fiend.Neal Pollack was out of shape. The hair on his head was thinning and the hair on his face was pretentious—traits a New York Times critic gleefully pointed out while panning his second book. Combined with the predestined failure of his punk roc...more
Paperback, 320 pages
Published
August 10th 2010
by Harper Perennial
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
702)
I picked this up as a 99-cent eBook, so I figured I didn't have much to lose. Overall it's an enjoyable, light read, and I appreciated the author's point-of-view. I don't practice yoga but it intrigues me, certain aspects of it seem quite worthwhile but I feel like there's a lot of wacky stuff there too. The author makes a point to try to wade through the strange to find the gems of wisdom that are most relevant to him.
Starting off, it was hard to care about the author because his recap of his...more
Starting off, it was hard to care about the author because his recap of his...more
1 like · like · see review
view all 3 comments
Hilarious and unexpectedly moving book about a self-described "doughy 35ish white man" with skinny arms and a huge dose of self-pity named Neal Pollack -- he of a few momentarily fame-lofted books in the 20-aughts -- and his somewhat accidental stumbling into practicing yoga and finding a better place in his life. It's not really a memoir, not really a self-help book, most definitely NOT a how-to book on yoga practice, and there are a few too many excursions into chapters that read like padded v...more
Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Dude is a sautéed mixture of booze, bitterness, balding hairlines, and the fat and aging body of a failed punk rocker/writer. Neal Pollack has simmered his story with pop culture, marijuana, family and various yoga tales to make a beautiful, flavorful, hot and luscious tale of one man’s pursuit of happiness. I’m no punk rocker (but oh, how I love the music!) or yoga geek, but I am an aging, balding (due to Hypothyroidism, not that you could tell) and slight...more
1 like · like · see review
Neal Pollack and I don't speak the same language. He's a forty-year-old, baseball loving pothead and I'm a twenty something, bookish vegan. This made Stretch an odd read for me. (I don't think I understood more than one of his references. The one I did get referred to a Beck song. Mellow Gold is bridging the generation gap!) However, we share a love of yoga, and Pollack provides a great intro to yoga culture in the West.
This isn't a how-to guide or a self help book, making it valuable for new an...more
This isn't a how-to guide or a self help book, making it valuable for new an...more
What an odd little book this is! Pollack is one of the ironically detached McSweeney's era writers, and it's really something to watch him struggle with his hipness and try to express some deep spiritual awakening. Ultimately, the ironic hipster dude gets the upper hand, and one's left wondering about what the transformation from stoner non-yoga guy to stoner yoga guy actually felt like. There aren't many clues here, just the evidence that his life is drastically different at the end, and not ju...more
Although there WERE times here that I laughed...AND LAUGHED out loud, and I liked his review of much of yoga, I got quite tired of Neal Pollack being 'witty' and I just did not 'groove' onto his drug habit. I actually didn't like the guy although I gather he's likable. I guess you have to know him to like him.
Yoga-wise, however, I liked the book enough. At first i thought I recommend it as a 'good read' but knowing my reading friends as I do...nah. Just one of my goofy, curious eBook choices fr...more
Yoga-wise, however, I liked the book enough. At first i thought I recommend it as a 'good read' but knowing my reading friends as I do...nah. Just one of my goofy, curious eBook choices fr...more
1 like · like · see review
Neal Pollack calls himself a comic writer. Which sounds better than "fitfully amusing lightweight writer," although that's probably closer to the truth. There are hardly any chuckles here, and even few smiles, given the subject and its potential (whether you practice yoga or not, there IS something funny about contorting yourself into odd shapes in a warm, dark room with a bunch of strangers). But the book moves along agreeably enough, as the 40-something author (a sometime McSweeney's contribut...more
1 like · like · see review
It's winter and wimpy me is not in the least interested in riding my bicycle to work. As this is virtually my only exercise, I thought I would take a yoga class. But this would have entailed the further irritation of lactation complications and so I did what I always do. I got books about it, instead.
I was looking for a home study course, but I noticed Pollack's memoir as well. I'd read Alternadad when I was pregnant (or thinking about it) and I really liked this mess of a man who went around in...more
I was looking for a home study course, but I noticed Pollack's memoir as well. I'd read Alternadad when I was pregnant (or thinking about it) and I really liked this mess of a man who went around in...more
Sep 23, 2010
Flissy
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
yogis
Recommended to Flissy by:
YogaDork
Shelves:
2010
OK, I confess, I totally was in tears laughing about Neal Pollack farting in yoga. I think I was expecting the whole book to be that hilarious (uh.. am I secretly a 12 year old boy?) but it turns out to be not only a very funny account of Pollack's own yoga experience, but also a very thoughtful and accurate account of contemporary yoga culture peppered with highlights in yoga history and philosophy. Highly recommended reading for yoga scenesters.
A decent read if you're a dude who is kinda into yoga. Laugh out loud funny in some parts but very whiny and long-winded in others. Somehow it balances out to a fairly enjoyable read that isn't going to blow yr. mind but is worth the effort. OK, effort is the wrong word. The literary equivalent of an affordable slice of vegetarian pizza.
This was... It wasn't bad? But it... just wasn't that good. Pollack seems like a dick, which is sort of the point. But, between reveling in being a dick, and talking about how yoga made him less of a dick, it seemed like there should be... a book, of some kind?
Mostly, this is a general chronological list of things that happened, mostly related to yoga. I think it's maybe meant to show a ... progression? Spiritual development and growth, a life enhanced by the practice? But mostly, it seems like...more
Mostly, this is a general chronological list of things that happened, mostly related to yoga. I think it's maybe meant to show a ... progression? Spiritual development and growth, a life enhanced by the practice? But mostly, it seems like...more
This book had such potential, but Neal Pollack is a fairly unlikable guy. He knows this and tells you straight up, but I still thought there would be something redeemable after making it through the whole book. He seems to be on a quest for self improvement, but every conversation with his wife is a declaration of what he plans to do with or without her (which I found kind of gross). In addition, he spends 80% of the book telling you how broke his family is and how he's trying to get yoga classe...more
If you are curious why I get up at the crack of ass to practice yoga, this book explains my reasons without too much of the woo woo talk.
Interesting, personal and very relatable (to me anyway), the book was engaging and easy to read. Pollack's writing presents more than an adequate balance of humour, knowledge and development as he shares his journey, in his own unique voice, to becoming a "yoga dude."
Although at times snarky and obnoxious, and occasionally excessively gross and "American" in its descriptions (not unknowingly, I'm sure), both the concept and content are executed well enough to have made it a pleasant and worthwh...more
Although at times snarky and obnoxious, and occasionally excessively gross and "American" in its descriptions (not unknowingly, I'm sure), both the concept and content are executed well enough to have made it a pleasant and worthwh...more
I enjoyed this book tremdously. Neal Pollack starts as a self-indulgent jerk and then starts on a road to developing his best self. Somewhere along the line he describes his yoga journey in a few words to a friend, and as a short blurb it sounds sort of lame. But it is a really earnest journey to change and open himself up through yoga. God this sounds hippy dippy already, but I swear it's better than that. He starts as a fat slob and now he teaches yoga! And he's funny!
I think this is a really...more
I think this is a really...more
I enjoyed the book far more than I thought I would. The book is a quick, engrossing read. Although I've had the book since November, I just started reading it because I wasn't sure I'd like it. So many of the reviews on Amazon wrote things that made it unappealing. However, once I started reading it, I found I couldn't put it down easily. It kept me up too late several nights in a row, making me a tired worker bee for several days.
This is a yoga memoir, and it's a funny one. I will always pick f...more
This is a yoga memoir, and it's a funny one. I will always pick f...more
Pollack details his yogic journey from skepticism to borderline evangelism with a great sense of humor, and like the best "sport" memoirs do, he makes it interesting to a person who has no idea what asanas are.
He finds himself searching for the right kind of practice and right kind of teacher that best suit his personality. For one thing, Pollack's still a stoner and a bit of pessimist, so anything too touchy-feely, straight edge, or activist has him rolling up his mat and searching elsewhere. S...more
He finds himself searching for the right kind of practice and right kind of teacher that best suit his personality. For one thing, Pollack's still a stoner and a bit of pessimist, so anything too touchy-feely, straight edge, or activist has him rolling up his mat and searching elsewhere. S...more
Although I hadn't read Pollack's previous novels I recognized him as a McSweeny's alum and with that knowledge knew that this was the kind of memoir I would appreciate. That coupled with the fact that I knew next to nothing about yoga made this a very interesting read for me. I come away from it with a new respect for yoga, which I had assumed was nothing more than an exercise regiment for people who liked eastern inspired motivational posters.
Reading this book I both deepened my knowledge and m...more
Reading this book I both deepened my knowledge and m...more
Neal Pollack was a bad boy L.A. writer who was on a path of self destruction. Drinking too much, after a little success, spreading insults, generally misbehaving, he alienated his friends and colleagues. He was willing to try almost anything to get his life back on track. Enter Yoga-
Out of shape, and not really motivated yet, Neal struggled as he tried to master the positions. To his great surprise, he actually felt better. He took more and more classes, becoming rather fanatical about his new a...more
Out of shape, and not really motivated yet, Neal struggled as he tried to master the positions. To his great surprise, he actually felt better. He took more and more classes, becoming rather fanatical about his new a...more
Cynical hipster humor writer Pollack was one of the original McSweeney's crew and the author of the high-concept early-2000s book The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature: The Collected Writings of Neal Pollack. Angry, bratty, and "doughy," he ends up sort of accidentally falling in love with yoga during an early midlife crisis (he was 35)... only to really, truly get a lot out of it! This is his story. It's honest, accessible, and even (dare I say it?) tender at times. It's also self-d...more
I don't understand how he still smokes pot when he has such a powerful attachment to yoga? He never explains it. I realize this author is a sarcastic comedy writer, but I would have liked a little introspection. He delves deeply into yoga and the Yoga Sutras, but he never talks about his personal, "why?" I mean you don't spend all that time and effort unless you are getting something out of it.
This book is a funny account of how the author, a journalist, started going to yoga classes. Eventually the classes became a big part of his life. The book actually made me want to do yoga. And he ends it by saying " namaste, motherfuckers!"
That's funny.
That's funny.
I fell in love with this book within the first thirty pages. From his first classes with teachers that obviously shouldn't have been teaching, to his absolutely unrelenting descriptions of his struggles and insecurities I was totally drawn in. I loved seeing how someone so cynical and grumpy could grow so much from a yoga practice, and Pollack does a lovely job of describing his own growth without being high and mighty. To me, yoga is a highly sacred thing, and this book describes that. It also...more
Neal Pollack is wickedly funny. His life finding yoga is more interesting and believable than many of the yoga “biographies” written by women. Yes, he was paid to explore the yoga a community but so was Elizabeth Gilbert for her Eat, Pray, Love, which I found less than enlightening. I enjoyed Pollack’s views of “gurus” and studios and the fact that he unabashedly named names. I’d even like an index to his travelogue of studios, teachers, and styles.
Ashtanga is not my yoga and wonder if the alcoh...more
Ashtanga is not my yoga and wonder if the alcoh...more
This is not the place for a critical analysis of the philosophical material covered in Stretch, but suffice to say that Pollack clearly shows that the more the mind and ego enters into yoga practice, the more ridiculous and confusing it gets. And, it's funny. Great read and enough to keep me moving deeper into my own exploration of yoga.
I have no idea who this guy is, or was, or why anyone cares. He is certainly annoying, but somewhat redeems himself by emphasizing how annoying he can be. I can't imagine how his wife puts up with him (unless she is a comparable piece of work, which he generously avoids detailing). In terms of yoga content? I was often confused by the sanskrit. If he says chattaronga, what do you envisage? At times the book seemed addressed to those who know a lot about yoga -- or at least made a pretense of doi...more
I enjoyed this book. I practice yoga myself, but came to it after many years of dance training. It was really interesting to get the perspective of a male who started out inexperienced as a mover. I think if I ever become a yoga teacher, there are lessons in here about how to treat that type of student. I also appreciated Neal's openness about his personal path and growth (and sometimes lack thereof). I could have done with a lot less of the repetitive self deprecating humor. Yes, you are sweaty...more
As a yoga teacher, I thought this book was hilarious. I checked it out from the library and kept putting off reading it in lieu of things I wanted to read more. Two days before it was due I started to read it because, well it was due in two days. I started it and read the first two hundred pages before moving from the couch. I laughed out loud, many times. It felt like a pretty good representation of many common misconceptions about yoga, and it was nice to see his journey through as he decided...more
Neil Pollack is funny guy and his story of how yoga helped him be a better person is an interesting read. However, I found myself more impressed by the yoga spiritual philosophy rather than inspired to actually try yoga positions for myself!
Entertaining and solipsistic. In other words, a Neal Pollack (TM) memoir.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Neal Pollack’s first book, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, was published in 2000, becoming an (almost) instant cult classic. His debut novel, Never Mind the Pollacks, hit shelves in 2003, and was shamelessly promoted by his band, The Neal Pollack Invasion. In 2007, he published Alternadad, a best-selling memoir. In 2010, Pollack became a certified yoga teacher and published Stre...more
More about Neal Pollack...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
