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and peace in her life. She said that yoga was a “tool for inner strength and a support for
my achievement”. Her more general goal is to maintain peace and happiness in her daily
life. She said that she enjoys all sorts of classes and approaches but admits that she does
not particularly enjoy Iyengar style “military precision”. For her a good class is one that
responds to the needs of the whole class as well as the individual students. MS1 prefers a
competent and experienced teacher who gives good explanations and adjustments. She
added that she does not like the “rub-down” massage style adjustments employed at
Moksha.
MS2 found that yoga helped her in a variety of ways in her life; it helps her focus,
aided her insomnia trouble, and greatly reduced her stress level. Most importantly for her,
it helped her recently to rebound quickly from a complicated surgery. Her aim for every
time she returns to her mat is to be in the present moment and to “quiet the chatter of the
mind”. This being her goal, it is no surprise to hear that she does not like a teacher who
talks too much; she prefers quiet to search for inner focus. Also, MS2 is “not happy if it
becomes just a Pilates class, lacking the spiritual dimension”.
MS3 explained that yoga helped her recover from physical injuries in her hips and
knees. The greater benefit lay in the general effect of her practice: “it gives me happiness
in my body, in my heart and my head” and “if I lose it, I find it again and again on my
mat”. During a class she seeks to stay focused and for her a good class is one when she
can “let go of everything” and leave feeling calm and refreshed. She likes to count
breaths while she practices and said she would prefer to hold postures a little longer than
in the Moksha style because she said deeper benefits could be derived by holding
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postures for one minute. She also prefers quiet for her practice and prefers that music is
not played during a class.
(C) Moksha Yoga students’ relationship with yoga tradition
MS1 reported to me that yoga was developed in India around five thousand years
ago and was passed down from teacher to disciple. She said yoga gave “tools to know our
true nature”. She also said that it was an encompassing way of life mentioning
vegetarianism as an example. She explained that yoga was different from regular exercise
because of its concentration on breathing. MS1 felt that using Sanskrit in class helps
make a connection but she could not specify with what. She wants a teacher who takes
the class seriously and who is knowledgeable about the body. Ideally the teacher should
be connected to a tradition. This student has a strong meditation practice and almost as
regular pranayama practice. She told me that yoga has become “all my life now” and that
she uses the yamas and niyamas (restraints and observances, the first two steps of
Patanjali‟s Yoga) as guidelines for living. She has read a number of books by Swami
Sivananda and Osho (Rajneesh). She also read Swami Vishnudevananda‟s Complete
Illustrated Book of Yoga, the Yogasutras, and Bhagavad Gita.
MS2 said that yoga came from a combination of the wisdom of sages, martial arts
and acupressure practiced in India. She told me she was not sure why but “the „Indian-
ness‟ is important” and she likes it. She described yoga as “moving meditation” of
physical and spiritual exercises and bringing into balance your mind, body and spirit. She
thinks that the Sanskrit usage is important because it is how we remember the tradition.
She added that she does not like it when a teacher refers to an asana as a pose rather than
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a posture. Her only concern about the teachers at Moksha Yoga is that they themselves
need more knowledge. She related a story of a Moksha teacher who, after putting the
class into final relaxation, announced “I don‟t know why we do this”. MS2 combines her
breathing work and meditation into a short period of quiet deep breathing before bed.
She hasn‟t read any books about yoga since her CEGEP class and she told me with a
smile what she remembers from that book: a photograph of “a skinny, bearded Indian
sticking a cloth up his nose”.
MS3 told me that yoga began in India some four thousand years ago when a
group of sages got together to “solve humanity‟s problems, then taught [it] to [the]
people”. She defined yoga as “alignment of head, heart and body”. She explained to me
that she‟s not part of any lineage and that she has a teacher in Montreal whom she finds
very inspiring but that teacher is not from a lineage either. She added: “yoga is not a
religion”. She is really interested in the Sanskrit in classes but it is not used regularly at
Moksha and she complimented the Iyengar style for its consistent use of Sanskrit. She
finds that what is most important in a teacher is his or her intention, which should be to
help people. She does not like or practice pranayama much but tries to do fifteen minutes
daily of “quiet sitting with breath awareness”. MS3 often searches the internet for various
articles on yoga but other does not read any books on yoga. She explained that she does
not like the yoga manuals and that she resists “the teachings”, finding that they are not
“great truths”.
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