Dear Anusara Yoga Community,

Yesterday was a watershed day for our community. Your voices have been heard, and the path has been cleared for Anusara to become a truly independent, teacher-run yoga school.

Following the stalemate in talks on Thursday and John Friend's subsequent announcement to move forward with his new plan, there was another wave of teacher resignations. Recognizing that in order to preserve the value of Anusara yoga he needed to cede full control to the teachers, John agreed to wholly transfer the school and the Anusara trademarks to a new entity in service of the teachers.

The LC has begun the necessary steps related to due diligence and legal negotiations to effect a transfer to a teacher-run school. Our present verbal agreement with John is that he will play no part in the new Anusara yoga school unless invited by the community to do so in the future and this invitation could occur only if John were "cleared" to teach by an independent, transparent ethics review process. An LC sub-committee has been working diligently these last few weeks on establishing guidelines and determining the independent professionals needed for an unbiased ethics review so that the process could be initiated as soon as practicable.

Whether you have been contemplating in quietude or making your voices heard in the past few months, we would like to acknowledge that everyone in the community contributed to getting us to this point.

As we work through the necessary legal and administrative steps, we will also be releasing a survey to hear your input in a more formal manner. Our plan is to involve the community further, including reorganizing the LC to incorporate new members and re-establishing the Teacher’s committees, as we together begin the process of revitalizing Anusara.

We ask you for your continued patience as things take shape. Everyone wishing to be a part of the new school is welcome. We hope you will join us and be an active participant in this process.

Thank you again for your support and patience.

Sincerely,
The Leadership Committee

Witnessed and Acknowledged,
John Friend and Anusara, Inc.