After practicing the Five Tibetans for two years, I was convinced that, at the very least, they were extraordinary. Despite the fact that they represented only minutes in my daily yoga regimen, I felt invigorated from practicing them.

Now, decades later, I can say that the Five Tibetans definitely help maintain more youthful strength, flexibility, balance, circulation, energy, endurance, and stamina. I also credit them with helping to keep me mentally sharp. They open up the body/mind energy system and seem to balance energy in a way that I have not experienced with any other individual yoga method or set of yoga practices. Not bad at all for a ten-minute daily practice.

Yoga helps you rise to the challenge of living. It keeps you from being ground down by circumstance. It puts fire into the body and mind and leads to being balanced and wise. It makes a lot of sense to practice. In this volume you are given tools to strengthen your body, enhance your health, increase your energy, hone your concentration, and experience the profound power and peace of deep meditation. You’ll find a comprehensive approach to a personal yoga practice using the Five Tibetans as a foundation. Specific information about the human energy system, the chakras, and kundalini meditation will give you a complete context for your practice. You don’t have to endure ascetic austerities or the rugged Himalayan terrain to get at these teachings. They are accessible without restriction, the way all valid teachings should be.

from The Five Tibetans by Christopher S. Kilham (Inner Traditions/Bear & Co.)