Anusara Yoga: An Interview with John Friend

Written by Katrina Ariel

Four years ago I had my first experience with Anusara® yoga in a workshop with John Friend. It was a wholly inspiring experience.

Having John Friend as a teacher is truly amazing. He has a way of weaving a tapestry of excellence in every class. He skillfully guides you to the most profound places, and yet there has never been a training with John where laughter has been absent.

While training with John I have discovered and redefined my capacity for physical, mental, and spiritual growth. You not only learn from John Friend, but if you attune to him and open to his teachings there is a direct and powerful energetic transmission that brings everyone up to their highest potential.

Concealment and Revelation

Written by John Friend - Keynote speech Yoga Journal Conference 1999

When I got here this weekend, I told one of my friends, "Yeah, I'm going to do the keynote on Monday", and she said "ooh good!" And I said, "But my buddy Stephen got really sick, and so I have to step in his place. He asked me to do it for him". And she said, "Ooh bad!" I replied, "Yeah it's the way it goes isn't it? What a play this life is". A misfortune for one person can result in the honoring of someone else. One door closes and one door opens; light and darkness, birth and death, the whole thing is a play. And this actually is the theme of the talk this morning, which I call "Concealment and Revelation: The Play of the Grand Magician".

Anusara Yoga - Flowing with Grace

Written by Desiree Rumbaugh

Desiree Rumbaugh has been studying yoga for 11 years and with John Friend for 11 years. She teaches in Scottsdale at the Arizona Yoga Center.

DR: How did you get started in yoga at age 13?

JF: My interest in yoga actually started at age 8 when my mother read stories to me about yogis in the Himalayan mountains that had Supernatural powers. As a young boy these stories of yogis living hundreds of years, levitating, dematerializing and having psychic powers completely fascinated me and expanded my imagination. I intuitively felt that these amazing yoga masters knew the deepest secrets of the universe, and that if I practiced yoga I could also know the answers to life's mysteries. So, when I was 13, I began formal study of yoga philosophy with the Bhagavad Gita and the principal Upanishads. The first translation of the Bhagavad Gita that I read was by Juan Mascaro, and I found it so beautiful and uplifting that I knew then that I had found the philosophy that I could use as a basis for my life.

An Interview with John Friend

Written by Philip Self

The following is an interview from the book, Yogi Bare: Naked Truth from America’s Leading Yoga Teachers, by Philip Self.

How did you become a yoga teacher?

My yoga teacher got very sick and asked me to substitute. After that experience, I taught a weekly class through college. I graduated from Texas A&M in 1983 and taught one class a week until 1986, when I started teaching two classes a week.