Anusara

The Texan yogi John Friend only started Anusara Yoga back in 1997, but this branch of Hatha yoga has already spread to six continents and 70 countries. The word anusara means “flowing with grace” in Hindi, fitting for a practice that emphasizes looking for the good in all things–non-”traditional” yoga poses included! Friend, who started practicing Hatha yoga at age 13, combined parts of  the devotional chanting, meditation, Kashmir Shaivism, and Astanga-Vinyasa, Iyengar, and Siddha Yoga he learned from his studies with master yogis across the country and in Pune, India to create Anusara Yoga.

Hatha is a very gentle and meditative style of yoga, and an Anusara yoga class tends to function as part relaxing physical activity, part group therapy session. Each class is organized around a virtue, with poses designed to bring out said virtue in everyone, and while Anusara has no real rules, its asanas or poses strive to balance your muscular and organic energies. In a nutshell, what this means is that a Bakasana in an Anusara class is not just a hand balance–it’s a means of opening the soul to achieve mental balance as well.

There are three levels of Anusara, 265 poses in all, encompassing standing poses, hand-balancing, twists, backbends, forward bends, inversions, and restorative yoga poses. Throughout the class, the teacher will adjust students’ poses in accordance with the alignment principles, but don’t worry about going by the book–individual variations are encouraged!

As befitting such therapeutic exercise, classes begin with a centering invocation and end with a Savasana (Corpse Pose) meditation. As Anusara’s hundreds of thousands of students can attest, you will certainly exit the studio feeling much lighter than you did entering it!