Maris Degener

You have to be willing to do the work.”

Maris Degener is a college student at UC Santa Cruz, a local yoga teacher at Just Be Yoga and a survivor of perfectionism. Maris struggled with an eating disorder at age 14 and was able to used yoga as her means of physical, mental and emotional healing. Her story is beautifully told in a Netflix documentary titled, I Am Maris.

Maris originally took a yoga class because it was the only form of exercise that her Dr. would approve in her condition. Her initial intention for the class was just to burn calories and sweat. After one class at Just Be Yoga, she realized yoga was much more than she had initially though. She was drawn to a sense of freedom that she had experienced and let herself be intrigued by her curiosity. Shortly after practicing yoga for a new months, Maris was accepted into Just Be Yoga’s teaching training program as the youngest teacher in training.

During the teacher training, Maris learning about the eight limbs of yoga and each of their deeper meanings. It was during her teacher training that she learned about Ahisma, meaning non-violence. She thought to herself, “duh, it isn’t okay to go around kicking and punching people.” Quickly, she realized that this yoga principle also applied to the self. She realized that she was being extremely violence towards herself through her need for perfectionism and control. It was this principle of yoga that helped Maris understand how to heal and become willing to do the work that it required.

In my interview with Maris, I learned that what people generally think of as “yoga” is much different from what yoga actually is. The physical poses in yoga, know as asanas , are actually only one aspect of yoga. There are eight limbs of yoga that address ideals, from your everyday breathing to your moral and ethical actions daily. In the interview with Maris, I felt as though my content questions were answered fully. I asked Maris what she thought the most important aspect of yoga is, that individuals staring yoga should focus on first. “The really key is mindfulness” was her response. She expressed that you must be able to observe what is happening within, with non-judgement and learn to separate your emotions from yourself. She described this as, “imagining your thoughts as moving cars on a freeway.” It wouldn’t be productive to go run in front of all the cars and try to stop or change them, instead just observe them driving by. Maris also explained that yoga and meditation go hand and hand. Usually classes facilitate mediation at the end of a yoga class when the body has moved through many poses. The reason for this is so that individuals are able to workout any pend up energy, so that once it is time to meditation, it is actually possible. Mindfulness and meditation are aspect of the eight limbs of yoga, so essentially, you can’t have one without the other.

Degener: Degener, M. (2019, July, 5). Maris Degener: Yoga teacher at Just Be Yoga[Personal interview].