Are we practising yoga?

Suzanne absolutely loves her pregnancy yoga class. She goes every Saturday afternoon and I know it's going to be invaluable to her when it comes to her going into labour.I asked her last week what sort of things they do in the class. She said, "we practise a lot of different positions for giving birth, we discuss different concerns that we have, we practise breathing for labour... it's basically just to prepare you for giving birth. Helen (the teacher) is brilliant""That's cool", I said.Then I thought "Is it yoga?… or is it more like a labour preparation class?" We agreed that it wasn't really yoga but it was excellent none the less.What is yoga then?The yoga sutras tell us: yogas citta vrtti nirodhahYoga is the stilling of the mind.So are we practising yoga in our Mysore Style practice?Think about it….It's hard to say for sure isn't it? Are we stilling our minds? Are we practising stilling our minds? Do we even have the intention of stilling our minds when we are practising? Or do we practise purely for good health and a nice ass? Be honest.Patanjali says that yoga (that state in which the mind is completely still) is achieved through two things:Abhyasa (practice) and Vairagya (non-attachment).So we're getting there with the practice bit right. We practice, In fact if there's one thing Ashtanga students take very seriously it's Abhyasa. And although it seems on a daily basis that this practice is hard and takes a lot of devotion it's a lot easier than non-attachment. Non-attachment is a difficult concept. I'm going to park it here though, because I want to get to the bottom of whether or not we are practising yoga in our mysore style practice. Are we even doing the Abhyasa part?Well I think the answer is that it depends on our intention. And the intention of each individual day of asana practice (or tristhana practice for those of you who read the last moon-day news!) makes a difference to the tone of each practice session.Take, for example, a day on which you feel physically tired. It could be (and sometimes is) the day on which you go deepest into the stillness in your practice. Other times you could feel in tip-top condition but your mind is busy planning, reviewing and thinking; your having a constant little internal conversation with yourself but your performing the asanas as well as you have ever done. The first example brings you much closer to Patanjalai's definition of yoga. The second one brings you closer to good health and a nice ass!So are we practising yoga every morning at class (or in our home-practice)? I think that the answer is:SOMETIMESIt's quite an unsatisfactory answer but there it is. We have to admit that sometimes, even in this venerated lineage of Ashtanga Yoga (note the capital letters and everything!) that we're often doing the exact same thing as the labour preparation class.So the moral of the story is: Just because a class you go to is called yoga, it doesn't mean that there is any yoga happening there. And that includes our classes. You have to bring the intention to allow yoga to happen. Otherwise it's just a really good exercise class.Guruji puts it better:"Yoga is an internal practice. The rest is just a circus"