John Friend (born May 30, 1959), [1] born Clifford Friend, [2] is an American yoga guru and creator of Anusara Yoga. [3]
John Friend (born May 30, 1959), [1] born Clifford Friend, [2] is an American yoga guru and creator of Anusara Yoga. [3]
Friend first learned of yoga at the age of 8 in Youngstown, Ohio, when his mother, Ann Friend, read him stories of yogis with hidden knowledge and supernatural powers. By age 13, he began studying yoga philosophy with the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads, and also began an asana practice by following Swami Satchidananda's book Integral Hatha Yoga.
At 17, Friend began a regular practice of sitting meditation with a Sufi group as well as members of the Theosophical Society. At age 19 he moved to Houston, Texas, where he studied various styles of hatha yoga including Ananda Yoga, Sivananda Yoga, and Kundalini Yoga. He also began teaching yoga part-time while working as a financial analyst.
In 1984, Friend began practicing the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Primary Series and, in 1986, quit his analyst job to teach yoga full-time. In 1987, Friend graduated to Secondary Series while studying with Ashtanga founder K. Pattabhi Jois in California where he also studied with Iyengar Yoga teacher Judith Lasater. That same year, Friend attended an Iyengar Yoga convention in Boston, where he met B.K.S. Iyengar, after which Friend focused his studies and practice mainly in Iyengar Yoga. Between 1990 and 1995, John earned Iyengar's Introductory and Junior Intermediate teaching certificates and also served on the Board of Directors for the Iyengar Yoga National Association before departing in 1997 to found Anusara Yoga. [1] [4]
Friend set up Anusara as a style of hatha yoga founded on a Tantric philosophy of intrinsic goodness and based on bio mechanical principles of alignment. Friend derived the name Anusara as meaning 'flowing with Grace,' 'flowing with Nature' and 'following your heart,'" as interpreted from the Sanskrit anusāra, meaning "custom, usage, natural state or condition". Founded on Iyengar's system of alignment, Friend streamlined everything into five "Universal Principles of Alignment", which corresponded to other quinary aspects of the world, such as the five elements, five regular polygons, five fingers on the hand, and so on. Friend also developed refinements to his quinary system, which included what he called "the Three A's of Anusara" (attitude, alignment and action), seven energy loops that comprise the human body, and various cues to assist in teaching.
Anusara's philosophical system drew from Friend's knowledge in Indian schools of thought, including Samkhya, Advaita Vedanta, Vajrayana Buddhism, and non-dual Hindu Tantric schools, particularly non-dual Shaivism, which he refers to as Shiva-Shakti Tantra. Friend also incorporates his other studies, such as Taoism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Theosophy, Wicca, quantum physics, sacred geometry, and western psychology. [5]
In February 2012, an anonymous tipster published accusations on jfexposed.com (short for "John Friend exposed"), which later appeared on the blog YogaDork. [6] These allegations of mismanagement and abuse were later reported on at length in an article in The Washington Post . [7] The four key accusations against Friend were:
Friend announced in March 2012 that he would step down from the leadership, while retaining the sole ownership, of Anusara Yoga to take a short leave of absence to consider his next steps in the yoga community. [12]
In 2013, John Friend began working with Colorado-based yoga teaching sisters Desi and Micah Springer to help systematize a yoga methodology they had developed. Prior to this, Friend had been dating Desi Springer. [13] Originally called "The Roots" practice, [14] the yoga system was rebranded in 2013 as Sridaiva (श्रदेव, Sanskrit for "divine destiny") [13] as coupled with an alignment methodology called Bowspring. [15] Friend teaches the Bowspring method at Vital Yoga Studio as well as on international teaching tours with Springer. [16]
K. Pattabhi Jois was an Indian yoga guru who developed and popularized the flowing style of yoga as exercise known as Ashtanga vinyasa yoga. In 1948, Jois established the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore, India. Pattabhi Jois is one of a short list of Indians instrumental in establishing modern yoga as exercise in the 20th century, along with B. K. S. Iyengar, another pupil of Krishnamacharya in Mysore. Jois sexually abused some of his yoga students by touching inappropriately during adjustments. Sharath Jois has publicly apologised for his grandfather's "improper adjustments".
Ashtanga vinyasa yoga is a style of yoga as exercise popularised by K. Pattabhi Jois during the twentieth century, often promoted as a dynamic form of classical Indian (hatha) yoga. Jois claimed to have learnt the system from his teacher Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. The style is energetic, synchronising breath with movements. The individual poses (asanas) are linked by flowing movements (vinyasas).
An āsana is a body posture, originally and still a general term for a sitting meditation pose, and later extended in hatha yoga and modern yoga as exercise, to any type of position, adding reclining, standing, inverted, twisting, and balancing poses. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali define "asana" as "[a position that] is steady and comfortable". Patanjali mentions the ability to sit for extended periods as one of the eight limbs of his system. Asanas are also called yoga poses or yoga postures in English.
Anusara School of Hatha Yoga, also known as Anusara Yoga is the successor of a modern school of hatha yoga founded 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.
Downward Dog Pose or Downward-facing Dog Pose, also called Adho Mukha Svanasana, is an inversion asana, often practised as part of a flowing sequence of poses, especially Surya Namaskar, the Salute to the Sun. The asana is commonly used in modern yoga as exercise. The asana does not have formally named variations, but several playful variants are used to assist beginning practitioners to become comfortable in the pose.
Uttanasana or Standing Forward Bend, with variants such as Padahastasana where the toes are grasped, is a standing forward bending asana in modern yoga as exercise.
Tadasana, Mountain pose or Samasthiti is a standing asana in modern yoga as exercise; it is not described in medieval hatha yoga texts. It is the basis for several other standing asanas.
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray. It was subsequently founded in the 1950s by Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into the Craft – as Wicca is often known – by the New Forest coven in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses Doreen Valiente, Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone into other parts of the British Isles, and also into other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, new figures arose in Britain who popularized their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, and organizations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association. It was during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734 and Dianic Wicca in the ensuing decades, and where organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess were formed.
Virasana or Hero Pose is a kneeling asana in modern yoga as exercise. Medieval hatha yoga texts describe a cross-legged meditation asana under the same name. Supta Virasana is the reclining form of the pose; it provides a stronger stretch.
Chaturanga Dandasana or Four-Limbed Staff pose, also known as Low Plank, is an asana in modern yoga as exercise and in some forms of Surya Namaskar, in which a straight body parallel to the ground is supported by the toes and palms, with elbows at a right angle along the body. The variation Kumbhakasana, Phalakasana, or High Plank has the arms straight.
A bandha is a kriyā in Hatha Yoga, being a kind of internal mudra described as a "body lock," to lock the vital energy into the body. Bandha literally means bond, fetter, or "catching hold of".
Prasarita Padottanasana or Wide Stance Forward Bend is a standing forward bend asana in modern yoga as exercise.
Yoga as exercise is a physical activity consisting mainly of postures, often connected by flowing sequences, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises, and frequently ending with relaxation lying down or meditation. Yoga in this form has become familiar across the world, especially in the US and Europe. It is derived from medieval Haṭha yoga, which made use of similar postures, but it is generally simply called "yoga". Academics have given yoga as exercise a variety of names, including modern postural yoga and transnational anglophone yoga.
Janice Gates was a teacher of yoga as exercise and mindful yoga, known for her emphasis on the power of yoginis, women in yoga and her work in yoga therapy.
Frank Jude Boccio is a teacher and the originator of Mindfulness Yoga as he distinguishes his approach, based upon the Buddha's teaching of satipatthana, from Mindful Yoga, which simply emphasizes doing postures mindfully. He explains the difference in his blog where he writes "In mindful yoga, one is practicing asana mindfully; in Mindfulness Yoga one is practicing mindfulness in the posture." He is known both for his teaching in centres across America, and for his 2004 book Mindfulness Yoga: The Awakened Union of Breath, Body and Mind, which describes a practice that combines yoga as exercise and Buddhist meditational practice.
Yoga teacher training is the training of teachers of yoga as exercise, consisting mainly of the practice of yoga asanas, leading to certification. Such training is accredited by the Yoga Alliance in America, by the British Wheel of Yoga in the United Kingdom, and by the European Union of Yoga across Europe. The Yoga Alliance sets standards for 200-hour and 500-hour Recognized Yoga Teacher levels, which are accepted in America and other countries.
The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.
Yoga in Britain is the practice of yoga, including modern yoga as exercise, in Britain. Yoga, consisting mainly of postures (asanas), arrived in Britain early in the 20th century, though the first classes that contained asanas were described as exercise systems for women rather than yoga. Classes called yoga, again mainly for women, began in the 1960s. Yoga grew further with the help of television programmes and the arrival of major brands including Iyengar Yoga and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga.
Postural yoga began in India as a variant of traditional yoga, which was a mainly meditational practice; it has spread across the world and returned to the Indian subcontinent in different forms. The ancient Yoga Sutras of Patanjali mention yoga postures, asanas, only briefly, as meditation seats. Medieval Haṭha yoga made use of a small number of asanas alongside other techniques such as pranayama, shatkarmas, and mudras, but it was despised and almost extinct by the start of the 20th century. At that time, the revival of postural yoga was at first driven by Indian nationalism. Advocates such as Yogendra and Kuvalayananda made yoga acceptable in the 1920s, treating it as a medical subject. From the 1930s, the "father of modern yoga" Krishnamacharya developed a vigorous postural yoga, influenced by gymnastics, with transitions (vinyasas) that allowed one pose to flow into the next.
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