Yoga's fresh blend

[Guest guest]

Yoga's fresh blend

Anusara style, which combines alignment and spirituality, is quickly

growing. But what about tradition?

By Stacie Stukin, Special to The Times

May 29, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-

anusura29may29,1,6704463.story?coll=la-headlines-health

ANUSARA students will tell you their style of yoga is more than just

exercise.

It's a community — one of like-minded people who accentuate the

positive as the route toward spiritual and physical well-being.

Among the believers is B.J. Galvin, who last month drove six hours

from Carefree, Ariz., with her two sons so that they could attend

founder Friend's weekend workshop in Los Angeles.

The L.A. stop of what Friend called his " Align With the Divine " tour

packed students into the ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel like

sardines (or string beans, for the vegetarians). The 280 attendees

came not just from Los Angeles, but also from San Diego, Yosemite,

Vermont and even Spain — all wanting to study at the feet of the guy

who in 1997 trademarked his brand of yoga, Anusara.

Anusara is one of the fastest-growing styles of yoga — but not one

without criticism.

Nine years ago there were only 160 certified Anusara teachers. That

number has swelled to 1,200, as the number of students has grown to

nearly 200,000. And Southern California, which has more than 50

teachers, is one of Anusara's biggest markets.

Los Angeles Anusara teacher Hillary Rubin attributes Friend's

popularity to his humility and humor. " There's nothing pretentious

about him, " she said. " Other teachers can make you feel like they're

above you or make you afraid when they walk around the room. 's

right there with you. "

At the Park Plaza workshop, Friend's people skills were evident. His

seemingly effortless charisma and his spontaneous cartoon-like sound

effects made challenging poses such as a handstand seem less

intimidating — as did his encouragement. He got plenty of laughs too.

At the same time, he took Hindu tantra philosophy — which promotes

the belief that everyone has the freedom to see and experience the

intrinsic good in themselves, in their lives, in others — and made it

accessible.

Followers of Friend, like Galvin, are sometimes called " Friend

heads, " an affectionate term for people who revere him (he gets

standing ovations) and are attracted by the spirituality. In most

yoga traditions, the body is considered an obstacle that needs to be

subjugated or disciplined so that one can transcend the physical and

achieve enlightenment. In Anusara, the body is something to

celebrate — providing a connection with inner divinity, or goodness.

" In classical yoga, it's all about renouncing and giving up

materialism. Then you go into these fancy studios and they're selling

$70 yoga shirts. It was confusing to me, " said Galvin, a commercial

real estate manager who is working toward getting an Anusara teaching

certificate.

" With Anusara, we acknowledge that we live in this world where I have

kids, a car payment, a mortgage and a job, but I can look at my life

and try to make it better by embracing what's good and by aligning to

something that's greater than me, " Galvin said.

'Flow with grace'

Friend, who is on the road 200 days a year teaching workshops and

training teachers, emphasized such a worldview when his friend and

collaborator R. , a Hindu tantra scholar at the

University of Rochester in New York, helped him name his yoga style

Anusara, which in Sanskrit means " to flow with grace. "

" I wanted to emphasize that the physical practice and the technical

stuff were a way to foster spirit and celebrate the tantric view that

the body is a magnificent embodiment of supreme consciousness, " he

said recently by phone from Anusara headquarters in the Woodlands,

Texas.

Anusara is based primarily on Iyengar yoga, which emphasizes precise

body alignment and was founded by B.K.S. Iyengar, who has an

institute in Pune, India. Friend taught Iyengar yoga for more than a

decade but, as he studied Hindu Tantra philosophy, biomechanics and

kinesiology, he realized Iyengar would not have approved of the way

he was organizing the alignment principles or the injection of

tantric philosophy.

Ultimately, he resigned — sending Iyengar a resignation letter out of

respect.

He did lose some students who, he says, didn't want to be renegades.

It wasn't the first time Friend had risked his livelihood for yoga. A

decade earlier, he had given up a successful career as a financial

analyst and moved in with his parents so that he could teach yoga

full-time. However, this time he had a loyal group of students all

over the country — ones who made the leap with him.

His resignation and his rise in popularity have not always been met

with enthusiasm by those in America's tight-knit yoga community.

n Garfinkel, a senior Iyengar teacher in Philadelphia who has

been practicing and teaching in the system since the 1970s, said, " I

certified Friend — and he's a great teacher — but I will also

say you either base something on Iyengar and follow it through or you

don't. Now we have these self-appointed gurus here [in the U.S],

people [like Friend] who take their own names and add yoga after it….

They have not contributed something significant to the tradition. "

Not for purists

Yoga purists say the tradition originated in India and therefore any

deviation from the Indian guru lineage dilutes yoga and

commercializes it with American entrepreneurship.

Friend says the business aspects of the Anusara organization (the

trademarking, the application process to get into a workshop, the

licensing agreements teachers sign after certification, the selling

of Anusara t-shirts) are mostly designed to protect the integrity of

the style.

" I worked so hard building a high standard and curriculum that I need

to maintain the credibility of my teachers and the system, " he said.

Friend's supporters say he has added something that other styles have

long neglected — fun.

" Sometimes yoga can be a bit dry in the way it is taught, " said Yoga

Journal editorial director Arnold. " is warm and fuzzy

and big-hearted, and since he has blended the tantra philosophy into

his yoga, it really celebrates life and it's just joyful. That

trickles down to his teachers, who approach their classes from an

attitude of can-do encouragement. You really walk away from an

Anusara class challenged, but you also feel a sense of

accomplishment. "

City Yoga on Fairfax Avenue was Los Angeles' first Anusara studio.

Since it opened in 1999, it has grown from a small space of 1,300

feet to a bustling 4,000-square-foot studio that offers more than 75

classes a week.

A typical class begins with inspirational remarks by the instructor

and chanting of the Anusara invocation in Sanskrit, which talks about

the divine teacher within and without.

In most yoga classes, the only sound you'll hear is the voice of the

teacher, but during an Anusara class, students are asked to help spot

each other by working with partners, and after the teacher asks a

student to demonstrate a pose the whole room applauds to celebrate

the accomplishment.

At first this support group-like atmosphere made Judith

suspicious.

A journalist and longtime yoga practitioner, said: " I thought

the applauding was so weird. I don't know why I kept going back. I

think I was desperate. I had been practicing Ashtanga yoga for five

years, and my back hurt, my rotator cuff was ripping, and I had all

these injuries from doing yoga. The Anusara system healed my body and

made it possible for me to do yoga again. "

and Naime Jezzeny, Los Angeles' first certified Anusara

teacher, who helped open City Yoga, believe those in the yoga world

won't admit a dirty little secret: Yoga can cause injury. That was

one reason Anusara resonated so strongly with Jezzeny, who has an

undergraduate degree from USC in biomechanics and exercise

physiology. When he was introduced to Anusara, he said from his new

home in New Hope, Pa., " that was the first time yoga was taught to me

in a way that I felt was biomechanically sound. "

The Anusara principles break down alignment into easy-to-understand

components — things such as inner spiral (rotating the legs, thighs

and pelvis toward the core), outer spiral (rotating the legs, thighs

and pelvis away from the core) and focal points (localized power

spots from which the muscular energy emanates).

" I don't care if you're at the computer, or lifting weights,

spinning, doing Pilates or yoga, it's all about good alignment, "

Jezzeny says, " and is really a genius in his ability to

systemize good basic alignment for yoga. "

This therapeutic approach to yoga is one of Friend's passions. And

although he has no formal education in kinesiology and there is no

research examining the benefits of Anusara, he said his teaching yoga

for more than 26 years, studying bodywork systems such as Hellerwork

and Feldenkrais, and apprenticing with kinesiologists and physical

therapists has given him the ability to identify good alignment. " But

what's most interesting to me is how alignment affects the body, the

mind and the spirit. "

That conjuring of spirit is what Bobette Buster experienced during

the Los Angeles workshop. " put all the pieces together for me, "

Buster said. " He explained the mind-body-spirit connection and did it

in a folksy conversational way that was not at all intimidating. "

Another Friend head is born.