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Yoga Instruction Resources
Here's a partial list of what Knoxville has to offer:

Knoxville Yoga Center
Contact: Ron Felix, 584-9704
Two styles of Hatha Yoga are offered; bikram and iyengar. Each style focuses on the different aspects of Hatha Yoga.

National Fitness
Contact: Jennifer Murrian, 429-2400
A Yoga Level I course, the emphasis is on relaxation and stretching. The goal of the course is to create a harmony of mind, body, and spirit.

Fort Sanders Health and Fitness Center
Contact: Morgan MacDonald, 531-5000
Hatha Yoga classes are offered every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday at 10 a.m., including an orientation for beginners at 9 a.m.

Ajeet and Seva Khalsa
Call: 579-4942
Kundalini Yoga, or the yoga of awareness. Exercises in meditation and relaxation, an eight-week series on experiencing the self.

Yoga with Shanti
Call: 584-1086 or 898-8222
Courses in eclectic Hatha Yoga are offered Monday at 6 p.m., Tuesday at 9:30 a.m., Thursday at 6 p.m., and Saturday at 10 a.m. New sessions will be offered for beginners starting in February. Call for details.

Power Yoga
Contact: Philip Clift 584-4714 or 933-5787
Based on the Ashtanga Vinyasa system; Wednesdays at 8 p.m.

UT Non-Credit Yoga Class
Taught by Andrea Cartwright, M.S., this introductory course teaches the basic postures and breathing techniques of Hatha Yoga. From Jan. 26 through March 8, or from April 5 to May 17 (both 6 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.)

YMCA
Contact: Eric Evers, 522-9622
Kripalu-inspired instruction.

Yoga is Relaxation

Shanti's class is winding down, and I've been reduced to a stress-free puddle of goo. "Relax your face and body, feeling joy and contentment, and appreciating how good it feels to breathe," she soothingly intones. I relax still further listening to her, despite a very real threat that my autonomic nervous system will shut completely down and breathing will no longer be an issue.

It's the perfect kind of yoga class for a Monday evening, the perfect antidote to a day spent playing catch-up in the great corporate struggle. "Our Center"—the Tibetan Buddhist shrine-cum-yoga studio in Bearden—is the perfect kind of atmosphere to unwind in, with its saffron-colored walls and soft halogen light. And the serene, raven-haired Shanti, 36, is the perfect guide on the journey toward inner calm.

"Shanti" means peace in ancient Sanskrit, and as such it is the perfect mono-moniker for a teacher like Shanti (yes, it's an assumed name; no, she won't reveal her real name). Shanti radiates calm, and her class is all about finding inner peace and relaxation.

She is perhaps Knoxville's most ubiquitous yoga teacher—teaching 12 classes a week at diverse locations like Our Center, Court South, Greenway Middle School, and corporate settings like TVA. She's been teaching since 1994, but doing yoga for much, much longer—her parents ran a yoga institute in Nicaragua, where Shanti grew up, for 22 years. She describes her style as eclectic—drawing from both the traditional Indian poses (or asanas) and from a series of 28 movements developed by a French doctor, Dr. Raynaud de la Ferriere, designed specifically to help Western bodies transition into practicing difficult Eastern postures.

"Hatha yoga is the path of yoga that has to do with maintaining both the body and the mind, and know that there is no separation between the two," she says. "In this whole system of life, yoga looks to how the individual can live in harmony, in the world and in ourselves."

Shanti's hour-long classes do feature some rather strenuous postures—standing poses and backbends—but always in such a way as the exertion necessarily leads to relaxation. She ends each class with a long relaxation in "corpse pose" (in which you lie motionless and heavily on the floor like—you guessed it—a corpse), a serene visualization (in which you stroll along the beach, perhaps; or gaze out the window of a warm mountain cabin upon moonlit snow), and a pledge to cultivate "pax," or peace.

"I tell people that yoga is a massage from the inside out," she explains. "And my intention is to help them release tension from the body as well as the mind. My approach is to help people bring all of their energies and capacities to be focused in the moment. Because when you do that, you can accomplish more—no matter what you are doing."