Community Matters: Lessons from John Friend

On the first night of the Estes Park Yoga Jounral Conference, John Friend read aloud from the mission statement that he wrote eleven years ago when he first articulated the intention of Anusara Yoga.  The most striking piece of the statement was its emphasis on the community.  As he introduced each Anusara teacher who would be presenting this week, they each spoke with gratitude about their practice and the community that supported them.  He then introduced his staff.  He knew each and every name.

And here is where Anusara blooms.  The first precept of Anusara yoga is shakti: seeing the good, the divine, in each and every person.  Opening to grace.  Many teachers expressed deep gratitude that they had found a community that, as Christina Sell said, “testifies for her.”  Her community has her back, she has their, and around and around it goes.

Now, this shouldn’t be such a rare occurrence, but I will venture that too many of us to not feel connected to an authentic sense of community.  To take a salient detour, my partner recently attended a Korean birthday party.  He was struck by the warmth and support that the Korean community showed for the birthday of one seven-year-old girl.  He noted that these were working class people who did not have a lot of extra money, but who seemed happy and glad to be with each other.  There was a sense they trusted and supported each other.  And within their community, each person had a place of importance.  What is most shocking about this experience isn’t that the Korean community was supportive, but that my partner – a man who makes friendship a priority –  feels the absence of such a community in his own life.

Many of us share this feeling of isolation.  Because community isn’t only about friendship.  Community mean having a civic voice and value.   The American dream determines our importance by our success.  We idolize individualism.  Proud and independent, we compete, rather than cooperate.  Despite our friendships, we feel a lack of belonging.

As John Friend has so beautifully demonstrated, yoga offers us the opportunity to reclaim a this needed community.  A community of like-minded, spiritually curious people who desire greater well-being.  Rather than go to class and remain isolated on our mat, why don’t we seize the opportunity to create community through our practice?  To recognize the people to either side of us as members of our tribe, or as John Friend says, members of the “merry band”.  We don’t need to be Anusara yogis to tap into this potential.  We can recognize our community wherever we are, and begin to weave the threads between us a little tighter.   It is no coincidence that tantra means “weave” or “loom.”  Through the practice, we create a tapestry of human connection in which to explore our deeper wisdom and brightest potential.  Testify!

Breath, Breath, Everwhere

A recent workshop with John Scott (www.stillpointyoga.com) has revolutionized my ashtanga practice.  Ashtanga is a vinyasa system, but I must admit that I have spent more time “polishing my asanas” than I have exploring how the breath supports the poses.  During the workshop, I was reminded keenly of Mark Whitwell’s viniyoga (breath-based) style (though Mark would undoubtedly decry such labels).  Inhalation is surrender; exhalation is strength.  As both teachers state, it’s a “strength-receiving practice.”  Suddenly, the two very different practices of viniyoga and ashtanga merged.  Ultimately, all practices unify.

Because the external configurations (bend your knee in Warrior II!) are sometimes all that we can control, we often spend more time making sure we look good than inhabiting and breathing through the asana.  Our culture veers to the external.  Progress is linear.  The more we work, the more we should have to show for it.  The more we practice yoga, the more advanced our asana should become.  However, what about the revolutionary idea that our asana should NOT get better, but instead become DEEPER?  What if we couldn’t prove that our asana had actually improved?  All we could point to is a deeper sense of stillness and peace?  Would we find this as valuable?

During the workshop, John rallied us to a breath-focused practice.  Rather than “polishing our asanas,” we let go of the external practice and felt the series from the inside.  We even spent one practice with our eyes closed.  Through drawing the sense inward (pratyahara), we let go of the externalization of the poses and instead focused on the breath.  Through this breath-based concentration, I found that the inhalations and exhalations supported my practice.  I wasn’t working through the primary series as much as I was being carried through it by the vinyasa.  Ironically, surrendering to the breath advanced my practice more than my effort ever had!  Injuries melted away.  Emotional cleansing flowed.  Concentration increased.

Not every day of practice will be transformative.  There are many days that feel like a slog.  But my rudder is newly fixed.  I have a new tool in my toolbox for spiritual exploration.  The workshop transformed the purpose of my practice from simply “getting further” to “getting deeper.”  Rather than propelling my practice forward through effort, I am beginning to also surrender and let it carry me.  I wonder where it will take me next.