:: May 2006 Volume 5/Number 3

Sitting Down With: Joel Kramer

By Julie Deife

When a new yoga method called Anusara hit the scene in the mid 90’s controversy around the increase in branding of yoga overshadowed Anusara founder John Friend’s story. Today, in California alone, there are 90 Anusara affiliated or certified teachers. John has trained them all while working almost non-stop for ten years building a kula, or community to hold the dream. On a recent visit to Los Angeles he took time out to share the history and vision for Anusara yoga, clearly inseparable from John as a person.

Julie: You made a big decision in 1986 to walk away from a successful career. Why?

John: I had been doing financial analysis for an international Swedish company. I was good at it, the company was successful, and everything was really swift, but I just hit a level of un-fulfillment. It was a life crisis that prompted me to say: “I really need to seize the day about what I really truly value and what my heart’s longing is.”

Julie: Were you already practicing yoga?

John: In ’86, in my mid-twenties, I had been teaching yoga for six years and practicing for thirteen. Yoga was a big, yet auxiliary, part of my life; it was like a hobby or the spiritual aspect of my life which I kept more private. I had my outer life of business as a normal middle-class guy in Texas making a living.

Julie: What did you do after you quit your job?

John: I put my belongings in my car and started driving west from where I’d been working on assignment in Ohio. I did not know where I was going. I remember stopping in Indiana or Illinois, I’m not even sure. I pulled off the road and into a little church parking lot. I got out of the car and went over to the lawn area of the church and under a big tree. The feeling of freedom was extraordinary. I had no job, nowhere to go, did not know where I was, the future was totally wide open and I was just sitting in my heart.

Julie: Did you know, at least, that you were going into yoga full-time?

John: No, it was just something I practiced and it had become my love. In 1986, to be a full-time yoga teacher was not really a smart career move. In fact, it was something that I reluctantly told people. Teaching yoga as a career was not highly thought of, especially in middle to upper class, affluent circles and all of my family.

Julie: Like many seekers, you went to the edge and ended up in California.

John: I spent about three months roaming up and down the coast from San Diego to Los Angeles to Santa Barbara through Northern California, the Bay Area and north of that. I went into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas so I was with the Ananda group and the Sivananda Ashram, too, in Grass Valley.

Julie: What were your impressions of yoga in California?

John: The yoga philosophy in the early 1980’s was just an amalgam of Vedanta, Classical and some Tantra.

Julie: For example?

John: I would hang out with Alan Finger, his lineage was considered Tantric. When I went to other teachers, they would tell me that their yoga philosophy was a mix.

They said, “We believe that you are not your body.” Well then I asked, ‘What are you trying to tell me the body is?’ I wanted to know and to have it defined philosophically. ‘What do you think the mind is?’ ‘When you interpret, ‘yoga chitta vrtti nirodhah’ are you saying that you want to stop the mind to experience yoga, or do you want to channel the mind?’

Then I realized that even the methods of meditation, the way they practiced hatha yoga and the way they looked at themselves were all very different.

Julie: How did you resolve it?

John: I started making notes and categorizing. I would look for the common connections between the styles and note unique aspects for each method. For example, I would recognize the Iyengar method would teach trikonasana with an emphasis on outer alignment while Desikachar’s method had more focus on coordinating breath and movement.

Julie: What other methods were you delving into?

John: Erich Schiffmann’s. He was talking about flow and the energy moving through, the energy lines outwardly radiating from a core. That was fantastic and I thought, ‘Is that the way it always is?’ because in the Iyengar method there was an emphasis of drawing in.

Julie: What did you seek to gain from the comparisons?

John: I wanted to know ‘Where do my beliefs fit? Let me not just follow a method because someone else says it is the way. Let me take a broader view and see what I really believe in.’

Julie: You were becoming a teacher.

John: Well, teacher, yeah, but my teaching was just arising from my love of being a student. I wanted to be a good student. Why not understand or define exactly what I am doing and why? Teaching was secondary.

Julie: When did you officially ‘come out’ as a full-time yoga teacher?

John: When I got back to Texas, I thought, ‘I am going to be a yoga teacher full-time.’ I announced a full schedule of classes, sent some press releases and the classes started to fill up. I also started getting private lessons.

Julie: What was it like in the beginning?

John: For about three or four years I barely made a living or did not really make a living and even moved back into my parents’ home because I was not even able to pay for my car or rent, but I did not give up.

I immersed myself into study and practice everyday. If you want to learn a subject you should become educated through studies and experience.

Julie: Philosophically, where was this going?

John: I had been reading about Tantra since the early 1980’s, including some of Swami Muktananda’s teachings, but I did not read any Tantric scriptures such as the Spanda Karikas, Pratyabhijna Hrdayam or Siva Sutras until 1989, and that’s when I really got turned on to it.

But I was practicing Iyengar Yoga, and Iyengar’s view of everything was in contrast to this Tantric view. So, I began to feel an inner conflict between the philosophy of Iyengar Yoga and my practice. By the mid 1990’s I had become completely Tantric in my philosophical view.

Julie: Now let’s talk about what the years of study and practice turned into: a new method called Anusara Yoga. Does the success of Anusara Yoga surprise you?

John: Yeah!

Julie: Why do you think it is so popular?

John: Probably foremost is that people feel empowered by Anusara Yoga. They feel that they are learning and experiencing something that is enhancing what they already do and love instead of causing them to think that maybe they are not doing their yoga so well or correctly. Looking for the good and affirming the beauty in things is a foundational part of our philosophy.

Also, there is an emphasis on building community, so immediately we try to welcome people. They feel like they have a sense of belonging from the beginning.

Julie: To look at it your way, it is almost like there was a need that was not being met. You can only tap into something that is there.

John: Yeah, that is an important distinction because it is not as if I said, ‘We are going to create a yoga system that is going to expand tremendously and have a large base and will be a long-lasting, fulfilling, successful yoga style.’

Julie: What was the intention?

John: The intention was to offer a method with high integrity, and if I got a few people who were really empowered by it, opened and felt that their life was more delightful because of it, then that would be a success. The numbers or quantity were never a focus, it was just quality that I cared about.

Julie: But it grew and spread so quickly.

John: I think people found it worthy, and they took to it with exuberance.

Julie: Who are your greatest influences?

John: In hatha yoga my most significant influences have been Iyengar Yoga and all of the Krishnamacharya lineages and influences. In the way I live my life, my parents, especially my mother have been most influential. Also, Gurumayi has been a tremendously positive teacher for me.

Julie: So, the Iyengar system clearly influenced your foundation?

John: Absolutely.

Julie: …but then there was a point where it was not who you were anymore?

John: That is right. This evolution of yoga styles is not unprecedented. Consider how many teachers in Los Angeles, who have been influenced by Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois or Bikram now they have their own styles.

Julie: You are an American yogi who believed in branding your system.

John: It was only natural and honest that I had to name it to distinguish it. It would have been dishonest to continue to call it Iyengar Yoga since key elements of my style including the fundamental philosophy differed from what Mr. Iyengar teaches and what he wants taught as Iyengar Yoga. A student who comes to my class will want to know what kind of method this is.

Julie: And what do you tell them?

John: Anusara Yoga is a style of hatha yoga that combines a life-affirming Tantric philosophy with Universal Principles of Alignment. In Anusara we have a clearly defined method. We focus on what we call the 3 A’s: Attitude, Alignment, and Action. Attitude encompasses the quality of feeling and energy behind one’s intention in the pose, while alignment generally represents the mindful aligning of oneself on every level in order to fully put one’s attitude into action in a pose. The Universal Principles of Alignment focus on creating a physical alignment of the pose which enhances the flow of the Shakti and the manifestation of one’s intention, or one’s attitude and artistic expression in the pose.

Julie: Alignment, as with Iyengar, is still a key principle, but you conceptualize it differently. Would you elaborate?

John: When you are in alignment two main things happen. First, you get this opening of awareness and a greater expansion of awakening, a glimmer of the deeper essence of yourself. So, there is a level of realization, remembering or recognition of what and who you really are. Glimmers of our true nature happen when you are more in alignment. Secondly, there is this greater flow of this energy that is experienced as delight. The freedom leads to a greater heart opening which is experienced as levels of ananda - feelings of happiness, joy and even bliss.

Julie: What is your relationship to the Anusara studios?

John: I have a very loose affiliation with the Anusara studios around the world. I do not require any fees or profit-sharing, and I don’t have any formal management position with them. I simply give legal license to the certified teachers to use the trademark name, Anusara Yoga, in their promotion. I have a direct agreement with each teacher individually, yet we all work together as a kula or a team. By promoting each other freely, Anusara Yoga expands everywhere and everyone in our community wins.

Julie: What interests you most about what’s going on in the yoga world today?

John: I’ve had the privilege of watching its evolution for 35 years. The growth is spectacular and it’s so exciting for me because I see the yoga philosophy and even the culture of the yoga infiltrating into cultures worldwide, especially here in the United States.

Julie: For example?

John: As yoga is more accepted, peripheral aspects of the yoga culture are brought in. Yoga philosophy, ideas of interconnectedness and that spirit pervades the physical world have crept into it - like dharma - and we consciously do things that will actually enhance life and are considered in alignment. Even in the media buzzwords like karma and mantra have become more common. It helps us consider our words and our actions more clearly.

Symbols like OM, are becoming more integrated into the fabric of our western culture, so we’re blending and merging east and west. This brings us more into a heart orientation instead of the western mind, head and materialism.

Now if you see somebody meditating on a bus or on the subway, it’s considered normal instead of weird.

Julie: What’s been the most difficult part of the tremendous growth of Anusara yoga?

John: A couple of things. One is that I don’t have the possibility of the personal connection with all of my students as I used to in the past when it was small. Secondly, it’s difficult to maintain the integrity of the style as it grows. Adding on parameters and boundaries to maintain high standards while trying to allow for continued artistic freedom and celebration of diversity takes constant diligence.

Frankly, I’m realistic. I know what goes up, comes down. Right now it’s expanding and flourishing and there will be a day when it will contract or merge into something else. Your flowers are going to die eventually but while they’re alive, you’re going to take care of them. There will be a time when it goes into something else. Everything has its exhale.

Julie: What would you like to say in closing?

John: The Southern California community of yoga is so influential for the U.S. and the world. There might be more yoga teachers in Southern California than anywhere else in the world. I think that this indicates an expansion of higher awareness in Southern California. People might be cynical about the superficial nature of the media-oriented metropolis, but all the diversity there should be celebrated. The very diverse yoga community in Southern California can continue to be a model about how the wide range of styles and schools around the country can get along with each other, as well as continuing to open themselves up for improvement.

 

For more information or to reach John Friend see www.anusara.com

 

 

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