Translation: Taylor Cazella

Saki Maruyama

• Yoga Alliance Registered Yoga Teacher
• Certified ISHTA Yoga Instructor (E-RYT500)
• Certified ISHTA Yoga Maternity Yoga Instructor
• Teacher Training Course Assistant Instructor
• Outdoor Sports Academy Part-time Yoga Instructor

Through her encounter with Ishta Yoga–which cherishes the individual–Saki’s lifestyle with yoga began. She studied under Kumiko Mack, and is now an instructor. She offers yoga instruction in her home town of Iiyama, in Nagano prefecture, surrounded by mountains and the many blessings of nature. In her travels back and forth between Nagano and Be Yoga Japan, in Tokyo, she has had the opportunity to share the blessings of yoga with many people, and for this she is very grateful. At present, she plans to continue to continue teaching the wonderful qualities of yoga that can be experienced daily through Ishta Yoga.

To start, can you tell us a bit about your upbringing?

I was born up in the mountains, in the northern part of Nagano prefecture. Thanks to my father, who was a Judo practitioner, I’ve liked putting my body to work since I was young.

What sort of effect has yoga had on you, personally, and your lifestyle?

Since I started doing yoga, my heart–along with my body–has grown much lighter, and the hardened places inside me have grown softer, little by little. I’ve cut much of the excessive effort from my daily life, and bit by by my lifestyle has grown calm and steady.

Could you talk to us about Be Yoga, and also how it relates to you?

The first yoga I genuinely started practicing was Be Yoga. I took the teacher training course, got a sense of yoga’s true essence, and reached a point where I’d go on to actually teach yoga. Nowadays I teach at Be Yoga, but there are still lots of things I need to learn. Be Yoga is that “place of learning” within me.

How exactly did you switch over to taking training classes for the purpose of teaching yoga so that you could learn teaching methods in detail?

When I took the training course, the feeling that I wanted to “know yoga,” or that I wanted a “deeper understanding of yoga,” were large; the idea that “I’m going to teach yoga,” would come after that. At that time, I wasn’t really fixed upon that idea that “I’m going to teach yoga.” I came to arrive at the present by a natural flow of things.

Can you tell us about Be Yoga’s Teacher Training Course?

People around me told me that my outward expressions were entirely different by the time I graduated, comparing them to when I entered the training course. I think that I was able to experience the blessing of yoga. Of course, I was able to become a yoga instructor, but more than that, little by little I’ve come to be able to better understand myself, and what the good things are in life.

Please tell us about the style of yoga you teach.

It’s the first yoga I genuinely started practicing is Ishta Yoga. And what I currently teach is Ishta Yoga. Ishta Yoga is a yoga that teaches us valuable meditations for yoga practice, and uses our bodies to firmly teach us their own valuable place.

What is your greatest pleasure in being a yoga instructor?

Times when I am capable of sharing with everyone the essence and blessing of yoga that I myself have experienced.

See the Original Interview

(In Japanese, no subtitles.)