Interview: Jake Laub, Inflextion Publishing

Jake Laub is the founder of Inflextion Publishing. This past year, Inflextion came out with its first e-book in what Jake promises to be a long series on yoga asanas, called Visvamitrasana: Vol. 1 of the Sage Series. For more information about Visvamitrasana check out Inflextion's web page or this video giving an in depth tour of the book. There, you can find out more information about other books in the Inflextion catalog and how to download them.
 

In the meantime, here is my brief interview with Jake. If you have any follow up questions you can post them here and I'll forward them onto Jake.

1. Inflextion Publishing is coming out with a series of e-books, each book about a single yoga pose. Why did you decide to go with this publishing model? Additionally, how did you go about deciding what poses to begin delving into?

Every yoga pose is so much more than just a shape, and we wanted to translate that concept
into a book series. In the world of digital yoga, there is a lot about doing – YouTube clips, class
podcasts, etc – but there is less focus on the context and insight that makes what we do in yoga
so meaningful and interesting.

This book series aims to bridge that gap. Yes, each volume includes an audio/video class
building up to a pose, but it also begins to explore the full body of knowledge around the pose
– physically and mentally, on the mat and off. On a practical level: How do I get into this pose?
What is the proper alignment? What are variations? On a more spiritual/intellectual level:
What life lessons can I learn from the pose? What are the mythological and philosophical
underpinnings of the pose? And then for teachers: How can I sequence for this pose? How do
different types of students approach the pose differently?

We began with a more advanced pose like Visvamitrasana because there is so much depth to the
pose, yet so little time is dedicated to it in a class setting. You might see it once or twice a year
and only spend a few frustrating minutes on it.

And if the pose is a challenge for you, the beauty of this resource is that you can come back
to it over and over again as you evolve as a yogi. Trust me, it will put those five minutes of
frustration in that arm balance class in perspective! Co-author Emily Stone would say: You
don’t need to be able to get into the pose to embody the wisdom of the sage Visvamitra. As with
anything in yoga, it’s much more about learning, aspiring and practicing than achieving.

2. When we spoke one the phone, you mentioned about how Inflextion recognizes different
styles of learning, and addresses that in your e-books. Can you expand on that?

There are two parts to this. The first is a concept I like to call, “ten pages long and ten pages
deep.” Every reader comes to a book with different interests, and so we build multiple levels of
experience into our books. You are able to skip over those sections that don’t interest you and
dive deep into the topics that do. For example, in Visvamitrasana you might just want a killer
class that builds up to the pose. Great – that is there for you. You might want to practice all the
different variations for getting into the pose… or not. You might read every word of mythology
section… or not. The beauty of a non-linear package of knowledge like this book is that you read
only the parts that interest you!

The second concept is that of multimodal learning. Not everyone learns the same way. Some
people are audiovisual learners while others do better with text, and everyone does better when
complex topics are supported by creative interactivity. The more modes of learning contained in
an educational resource, the better. Enhanced yoga books allow us to combine text, audio and
video to make learning as intuitive as possible.

3. A question I like to ask most of the folks I interview: What are some upcoming projects
that you are really excited about?

I’m really excited about our follow-ups to the Visvamitrasana book, which will begin coming
out this Spring. We are scheduled to publish at least 12 more books in the series in 2013,
covering a variety of poses – backbends, standing poses, inversions, and, of course, a few more
sage poses.

I’m also excited about a book we just published called Mind Body Bike: Yoga and the Art of
Slowing Down to Speed Up. This book is full of “Aha!” moments – ideas that totally change how
you approach something you have been doing for a long time. For cyclists, who are so focused
on moving fast, “slowing down to speed up” is a radically powerful concept.