Anusara Yoga

Anusara yoga
Founder	John Friend
Established	1997
Practice emphases
alignment, "heart opening" postures and the spiritual and meditative aspects of hatha yoga
Related schools
Iyengar Yoga

Anusara yoga is a modern school of hatha yoga started by American-born yoga teacher John Friend in 1997. Friend derived his style from the Iyengar style of yoga and reintroduced elements of Hindu spirituality into a more health-oriented Western approach to Yoga.

The emphasis of Anusara is on a set of Universal Principles of Alignment which underlie all the physical asanas and are connected to philosophical aspects of the practice. According to the official Anusara Yoga website, the school's ideology is "grounded in a Tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness". Friend states that the term "Anusara (a-nu-sar-a), means 'flowing with Grace,' 'flowing with Nature' and 'following your heart,'" as interpreted from the Sanskrit anusāra, meaning "custom, usage, natural state or condition".

Principles

Anusara Yoga places more emphasis on tantric philosophical concepts than many other forms of Hatha Yoga commonly taught in the West. "As of January 2010, the philosophical vision of Anusara yoga is specifically called Shiva-Shakti Tantra", referring to the "divine polarities" of the Hindu deities Shiva and Shakti. The ultimate aim or "highest intention" of practicing Anusara yoga is the "alignment with the Divine" or "co-participation with the Supreme".

Friend delivers short sermons or "dharma talks" to his students, based largely on simplifications of Tantric principles, expressed in "the American idiom of self-improvement".

The Three A's of Anusara Yoga

The practice of Anusara Yoga is broadly categorized into three parts, known as the Three A's:

1. Attitude, writes Friend, is the "power of the heart as the force behind every action or expression in an asana." It is "the aspiration to reawaken to our divine nature, and the celebration of life."
2. Alignment, according to John Friend, is the "mindful awareness of how various parts of ourselves are integrated and interconnected." Anusara's Universal Principles of Alignment (see below) are refinements of this principle.
3. Action, according to Friend, is the "natural flow of energy in the body, which provides both stability and joyful freedom."

Universal Principles of Alignment

Anusara Yoga works with five major alignment principles. When assuming a yoga pose, Anusara practitioners make refinements on the pose's alignment by performing the principles in order. Within each principle, there are further refinements.

Universal Principles of Alignment

Principle	Elaboration
Opening to Grace	The practitioner intends to place him/herself in alignment with the flow of Supreme Consciousness. For asana practice, this includes having an attitude of soft-hearted devotion, and open-mindedness. Refinements of this principle include, "inner body bright", "outer body soft" and "side body long."
Muscular Energy	A drawing of energy from the periphery of the body into a central location in the body, called a Focal Point. Muscular Energy seeks to increase stability, strength, and physical integration in the pose.
Inner Spiral	An expanding energy spiral. In the legs it runs from the feet up through the pelvis into the waistline area to rotate the legs inward, move the thighs backward, and widen the thighs and pelvis. In the arms Inner Spiral spins the forearms inward from anatomical neutral
Outer Spiral	A contracting energy spiral. In the legs it runs from the waistline area down through the tailbone and out through the legs and feet to draw the pelvis and thighs closer together, move the tailbone and thighs forward, and rotate the legs outward. In the arms, Outer Spiral spins the upper arms out and away from each other from anatomical neutral, refining the heart-opening action of the Anusara Yoga practice.
Organic Energy	An outward extension of energy from the Focal Point through the core lines of the body to the body's periphery, which increases expansion, flexibility, and freedom in the pose.

Energy Loops

In creating his style of yoga, John Friend noticed that there were further alignment refinements that corresponded to loop-shaped movements in the body. Looking at one's body in profile, each of these loops has its origin in the vertical center line of the legs, trunk, or head, rotating toward the back plane of the body and looping either upward or downward and back in the other direction (down or up) along the front plane of the body. Each loop intersects with adjacent loops above and below it and has a right and left component. The seven energy loops are:

1. Ankle Loop, starting from the center of the ankle bone, running down to the heel, under the sole of the foot and back up to the ankle.
2. Shin Loop, starting from the center of the ankle bone, moving up the calf to just below the knee, then returning down the front of the shin.
3. Thigh Loop, starting at the pelvic focal poin, running down the back of the thigh to just below the knee and back up the front of the thigh.
4. Pelvic Loop, originating in the core of the lumbar spine, looping down the back to the pelvic focal point and back up the belly.
5. Kidney Loop, beginning at the lumbar, running up the back ribs to the heart focal point and back down the front to draw floating ribs in.
6. Shoulder Loop, originates at the upper palette, runs down the back of neck and shoulder blades, through the heart focal point and back up across front upper ribs and throat.
7. Skull Loop, starts from the upper palette and drows over the back of the skull and down the face.

Anusara Invocation

"The Anusara Invocation" is a sanskrit mantra, beginning with Om Namah Shivaya, which Friend states he received from his guru Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. All Anusara Yoga classes begin with three chants of om, followed by three rounds of the Invocation, and concluding with one final om. The mantra's lyrics are:

"Om Namah Shivaya Gurave (Hail to Shiva, the Teacher)

Sacchidananda-Murtaye (Whose Form is Truth, Consciousness and Bliss)

Nishprapanchaya Shantaya (The Singular One, the Peaceful One)

Niralambaya Tejase''(The Self-supported One, the Lustrous One)

The same mantra is known as the "Siddha Yoga mantra", and it also occurs as a verse in the Guru Stotram used by Sivananda Saraswati's Divine Life Society.

Founder

John Friend ringing a bell to start a workshop in Anusara Yoga in Copenhagen, June 2010.

John Friend (born May 30, 1959) started practicing yoga postures as shown in the book Integral Yoga Hatha by Swami Satchidananda at age 13. He lived in Ohio until 19 years old, and then moved to Texas. Before becoming a yoga teacher, Friend worked as a financial analyst until he quit in 1986 to teach yoga full time. In the years following he traveled to California to study with Judith Lasater, and began to focus on Iyengar yoga. Friend was a popular teacher in the Iyengar style and, during the 1990s, served on the board of the Iyengar Yoga Organization for four years before leaving to found Anusara Yoga. Friend continues to take an active role leading the expansion of the school and training (and certifying) teachers.

Friend is a disciple of Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, the current guru of the Siddha Yoga school of Kashmir Shaivism.

2012 scandal

On February 3, 2012 an anonymous tipster published a number of accusations on jfexposed.com (short for "John Friend exposed"). Though the site was taken down, the blog YogaDork republished jfexposed's four complaints regarding John Friend, founder of Anusara Yoga and owner of Anusara, Inc. These were:

1. That John Friend is the leader of a Wiccan coven whose members allegedly included female Anusara teachers and employees. The tipster provided documentation that John Friend engaged in sexual relations with women in the coven, including a letter allegedly written by him to a coven member with whom he had sexual relations, and described an 'alignment' between Wicca and the Anusara system of yoga.
2. That John Friend was a "homewrecker", having had sexual affairs with several married Anusara employees and teachers. In a February 2012 interview, Friend admitted to the truth of this allegation.
3. That John Friend froze funding of employees' defined benefits plans, avoiding notification to employees, and thus violated federal ERISA regulations. The tipster claimed that Friend's company, Anusara, Inc., made the change to the plan in January 2010, but waited until December 2010 to provide oral notification to some employees. In December 2011, 204(h) notification had still not been provided and the tipster made a complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor. In January 2012, Anusara, Inc. finally provided official notification, but attempted to backdate the notification, as well as the effective freeze date, to January 1, 2010. In response to this complaint about the backdating, the Department of Labor advised Anusara, Inc. that it was in violation. Anusara, Inc. then restored funds to the account and provided notification of a freeze to take place in the future. John Friend provided documentation verifying the pension notification violations and the timeline outlined by the tipster. The documentation included a letter from Anusara Inc. which assured employees that there was never an intention to be deceptive.
4. That John Friend placed employees and personal assistants in legal jeopardy, arranging for them to personally accept delivery of packages of marijuana shipped for Friend's own use. The anonymous tipster did not provide documents to back this up and Friend has not addressed this allegation publicly.

These allegations came on the heels of the departure of four senior Anusara teachers from the organization, all of whom had resigned their Anusara teacher certificates in the weeks leading to the public disclosure of wrongdoing by John Friend. After the allegations against Friend went public, several other senior Anusara teachers resigned their Anusara certification.

John Friend announced on February 16, 2012 that he would step down from the leadership of Anusara Yoga. "On Monday, I will be stepping down and taking a leave of absence for self-reflection, therapy, and personal retreat in order to take care of myself, and consider the next best step for myself and Anusara. Professional counselors and advisors will help me to determine the duration of my sabbatical."

External links

• Anusara yoga site