I picked up this book some months ago, while staying with my family, because I wanted some form of exercise I could do in a small space that didn’t necessitate travelling to a gymn (since my transportation was limited at the time) and didn’t require me to engage in incessant repetition (which is just dull). About the same time, Seamm Jasani: 58 Movements for Eternal Youth from Ancient Tibet showed up in my Amazon recommendations, for no apparant reason. Seemed serendipitous, so I bought it. According to Wikipedia, “Seamm-Jasani is one of the branches of Boabom, an ancient Tibetan martial art. It consists of slow and fluid movements, designed to improve coordination and to build an equilibrium between body and mind through various breathing and movement techniques.” But I can’t be sure the author of Seamm Jasani didn’t write the wikipedia entry, since the entry also contains quite a plug for his book and his school. The author, Asanaro, according to the bio in the book, has “dedicated more than twenty years to the study and teaching of Alternative Arts and Philosophy originating in pre-Buddhist Tibet, transmitted as thirty-three diverse sciences, of relaxation, defense, meditation, and philosophy.” The only information I seem to be able to find on Asanaro is information written by Asanaro (and his friends). I have no idea how solid his credentials are but for now, for the purposes of this review, we’ll take his word for it. Everything about the book is designed to sell to a particular strata of society that is disenchanted with modern life and seeks enlightenment, escape or betterment through the “purity” of ancient philosophies and techniques. If its old, its good. If its from the venerable east, its even better. The book’s cover shows three men, garbed in black, on a snow-draped Tibetan (presumably) mountaintop.contorted into some dynamic position that would be the envy of every middle-aged couch-potato everywhere. One of the men looks Asian and the other two look like hippies so they must be enlightened, right? And on the back, a black and white shot of the same three men on the same mountain, this time from behind, overlooking a splendid snow-capped vista. The three men have now assumed a slightly more arthritic version of that flamingo-looking pose from the Karate Kid The blurb on the back assures us that this system was developed in Tibet more than ten-thousand years ago (old is good, remember?), and is only now being revealed to us western nobodies for the first time by Mr Asanaro, whoever he is. “Seam-Jasani”, it proclaims, “will teach you how to combat stress and disease, look younger, feel better, and attain inner peace along with greater energy.” Notice all the catch-phrases designed to appeal to the widest array of consumer. The tense businessperson can de-stress. The ailing can combat disease. The aging hausfrau can look younger. The spiritual seeker can gain inner peace and hey, everyone could use a little extra energy, right? I know I could. I know I could also probably stand to be a little less cynical, but what can you do? The Book is divided into eight parts, but could just have easily been divided into two parts - the Crap and the Exercises. The first four chapters are the Crap, and the last four consist of the Exercises. If you’re like me you like to cut through the crap and get to the practical stuff, and I sure wish I’d done so in this case. Now not all of the Crap is crap. Some of it might be useful or interesting to some people. But some of it is full-on Crap. The worst offender is the first, the very first, chapter, which gives us some advices on how to live. Contradictory, hypocritical and histrionic from the get-go. For instance, Mr Asanaro begins by telling us that the secret to eternal youth is happiness. Sounds good. I like to be happy. Damn well beats being bitter and cynical all the time. Pertaining to diet, he says, “it really does not matter whether we eat meat or are strict vegetarians: what matters most is that we are happy carnivores or vegetarians” (Note the “carnivores” sound like animals where as the vegetable-eaters are given the human moniker of “vegetarian” rather than being called an herbivore). Then Mr Asanaro goes on to give us dietary advice which, if I were to follow it, would make me very unhappy indeed. Give up caffeine? You’ll have to pry it out of my cold, dead, once-jittery fingertips. One of the most blatant contradictions comes when Mr Asanaro tells us to “be wise with alcohol” then turns around and “tells us to absolutely avoid any and all variety of drugs”. The last time I looked, alcohol was one of these varieties of drugs, AND a very dangerous, often debilitating one at that. (but I’m not giving up the beer either). To avoid hypocrisy would it not be better to say “avoid alcohol and drugs” or “be wise with alcohol and drugs”, one or the other? Of course it would probably be best to go down the entire list of recreational pharmaceuticals one by one examining clearly the psychological and physiological effects of each, but this would require a whole book, and many such books have already been written. But besides being hypocritical about alcohol and drugs, he also becomes positively hysterical on the drugs issue. He begins to sound like Mothers Against Fun or whatever that group is called. On the subject of drugs he says: “you would be better off asking a ‘friend’ to grab a baseball bat and hit you in the head, hard.” Now I don’t know about the skull density of your head but I’m far less likely to suffer brain damage from the occasional joint than I am getting regular poundings from a baseball bat. And Mr Asanaro does not back up any of his hysterical claims with any sort of facts or documentation, he merely screeches at the top of his lungs that drugs, all drugs (except alcohol) are bad bad bad. Another of my favourite advices I just have to give you in its entirety. Its beyond belief. “On the other hand, if you have one of modern society’s diseases like anorexia or bulimia, I can guarantee that you are not going to acheive anything aside from getting into the hospital or the cemetery. If you want to keep doing this, please be economical and get yourself some good health and life insurance.” I can’t even begin to enumerate the many wrongnesses of this paragraph. The flippancy toward two devastating diseases, the ignorance of the underlying psychological and social causes, the insinuation that people who suffer from these disease “want to keep doing this”, and the only advice he can find is to get insured? Yeah, he’s wise alright. Now that you have an idea of what to expect from the Crap section of the book, lets take a look at the Exercises section, which comprises chapters five through eight. The manner in which the exercises are presented is pretty confusing. There are 58 movements. Thats a lot of movements. And you don’t learn them in the order they are given. No you are given a “chart” which isn’t really a chart that tells you to first learn movements 1,4, 5, 9, 12 and so on, then you add movements 2, 6, 10, 18 and so on. Which means a lot of flipping back and forth between pages trying to figure out which movement you are supposed to be doing next. The illustrations are followable but not very attractive. For the basic exercises we see a line-drawn woman with a featureless face, and for the advanced movements we have a line-drawn hippie man, because everyone knows a woman can’t do the advanced movements. The taint of sexism rears its ugly head. The line-drawn bearded hippie man also serves to remind us that if hippies do this, it must be healthy. (Hippies also smoke pot, but add that to the growing list of this book’s contradictions). You may be surprised to know that after all the bile I’ve heaped on this book that I actually DO the exercises. Why? Well not because its old. Older isn’t necessarily better. I’ll pit the state of the art equipment in the gymn across the street against the rock Og lifts out in front of his cave anyday. And not because its Tibetan. I don’t care if its Seamm Jasani, Tai Chi, Chi Gong or Mok’bara (thats the Klingon form of Tai chi for the Star Trek impaired out there), as long as it does what I want it to. And it does. It gives me a series of exercises I can do in a small space, that isn’t repetitive. Since I have to add a new movement, the exercises are a progressive learning experience and I am less likely to get bored and drop it. I do hate flipping back and forth through the book to find my next movement, but once I’ve learned it, I do feel a sense of satisfaction. So do the exercises work? Well lets take another look at the claims. Reduce stress. It is well documented by now that any form of daily exercise can help reduce stress. Exercise isn’t a cure-all but regular exercise does have stress-reducing benefits. Combat illness. Maintaining a sensible diet, particpating in regular exercise and reducing stress does, of course, boost the natural immune system. It does not cure every disease but will increase the overall health. Look younger. Exercise can help reduce body fat and increase muscle tone, giving a more youthful appearance to the body. Feel better. If our stress is reduced and our health is increased, we’re going to feel better physically. And if we look more toned and elastic we may feel better emotionally. Inner Peace. This one is pretty subjective. For me personally, no exercise is going to give me inner peace. I achieve that through creativity and discovery and interaction with loved ones. If its inner peace or enlightenment you’re looking for, there are plenty of religions that seem to have worked for a pretty long time - you might want to try one of those. Greater energy. Again, exercise will increase stamina, provide more energy during the day, deeper sleep at night, and shorter sleep time. So Seamm Jasani, for the most part, can deliver on its promises, but so can most any exercise. I enjoy doing Seamm Jasani because it is challenging, interesting, and is a learning process. I do find it increases my energy just as well as any exercise does, and I also appreciate the level of concentration that it requires. I like the Exercises. I just wish I didn’t have to wade through so much crap to get to them.