Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Sports & Active outdoor recreation

HELL-BENT

Benjamin Lorr

Obsession, Pain, Rage, and the Search for Something like Transcendence in Hot Yoga

This quirky, thoroughly entertaining narrative paints a colorful portrait of the characters who dare to push themselves to the extreme, braving the physical and mental challenges that distinguish a hobby from competitive sport.

In the spirit of Born to Run and Word Freak, Benjamin Lorr delivers an eye-opening look at the world of extreme yoga and a tale of personal transformation. Yoga has become big business with millions of practitioners around the world. Tales abound of the benefits that come from stretching your limbs—and your sense of self—to the limit. Benjamin Lorr began as a casual yogi, but he quickly witnessed a transformation of body, mood, and energy. He was studying Bikram Yoga (or “hot yoga”), when an encounter with a master and competitive yoga champion led him into an obsessive subculture—a group of yogis for whom eight hours of practice a day in 110º F/ 43 º C were just the start. So begins a journey into the strange, amazing world of competitive yoga. Populated by athletic prodigies, wide-eyed celebrities, and predatory hucksters, Lorr’s trip takes us all the way to the stage at the National Yoga Asana Championship, where he competes for glory. The culmination of two years of research, featuring hundreds of interviews with yogis, scientists, doctors, and scholars, Hell-bent paints a colorful portrait of the characters who dare to push themselves to the extreme, braving the physical and mental challenges that distinguish a hobby from competitive sport. Benjamin Lorr graduated from Columbia University with a degree in creative writing. He is certified to teach Bikram Yoga and competed in the International Yoga Asana Championships, training directly under Bikram himself.

Available products
Book Published 2012-10-01 by St. Martin's Press

Comments

Anyone with an interest in transformational memoirs and open to New Age ideas will gravitate to this story.

"If, in addition to good health, yoga offers insight, then this might be the most thorough and honest book on the topic. Hell-Bent is a personal romp through a bizarre world, a clear-eyed exploration of the science of contorted bodies, and an unflinching exposé of a guru that finally leaves you asking: How do you judge the salesman when the snake-oil might actually work?"

Benjamin Lorr smartly unpacks the complex, often deeply confusing relationship between modern yogis and their all-too-human gurus. Hell-Bent is a compassionate, insightful exploration of the emotional and intellectual tug-of-war many of us have experienced in our yoga practice, revealing how we can fear and resent our most charismatic teachers-- yet still be willing to follow them to the ends of the earth

[I]mmensely satisfying-close to a guilty pleasure. Hell-Bent is witty and wise. If you don't practice yoga, read it anyway-you may learn something about the impulse for self-transcendence. And if you do practice yoga, you will laugh and cry with recognition. Read more...

A comprehensive examination of hot, competitive yoga, its cultlike following and the author's immersion into the practice... Meticulously researched, suspenseful and engrossing.

An addictive read. Read more...

This extraordinarily thoughtful memoir stretches and reaches and bends in several seemingly impossible directions at the same time. It is as once a searching act of self-examination, a fascinating scientific investigation, a brave spiritual endeavor and a fair-minded look at one of yoga's most controversial icons. All in all, reading Hell-Bent makes for a wonderful, inspiring, maddening, complicated, edifying journey-- and one that I was very happy to take."

Hell-Bent is sure to turn readers’ impressions of yoga upside down.

An in-depth look at competitive yoga and its transformative power for a beginner who became a legit competitor.. You'll be inspired to strip down into your intimates for hot yoga after devouring this read. Read more...

Who knew that self-purification could be suspenseful? This tale of an unlikely American yogi and his maniacal, outlandish master is more than a memoir. It's a spiritual thriller.

As a long-time practitioner of Bikram yoga, Hell-Bent had me at hello. But one need not be familiar with the strange and fascinating culture of hot yoga to fall head-over-heals for this book. Insightful, compassionate, and laugh-out-loud funny, Lorr delves deep into the quest for and motivations behind our human obsession with god-like perfection, introducing a cast of unforgettable characters and exposing a world of faith and devotion, pain and promises, myths and miracles. I couldn't put this book down.

"A vividly researched, beautifully written insider's account of the yoga world's most inscrutable, profitable, and misunderstood subculture."

UK/Commonwealth rights sold to Bloomsbury UK for simultaneous publication in October 2012.

"Benjamin Lorr's Hell Bent is a fascinating, riotous, and hilarious insight into the world of hardcore, competitive postural yoga practice."