a-nu-sar-a, "flowing with Grace", "following your heart"

Anusara Yoga® is a uniquely integrated approach to hatha yoga in which the art of inner body awareness blends powerfully with the science of biomechanics. Founded by John Friend in 1997, Anusara Yoga has become one of the fastest growing hatha yoga systems in the world thanks to its elegant set of alignment principles and heart-oriented Tantric philosophy.

The highest intention of practicing Anusara Yoga is to align and harmonize with the flow of Grace. The art of yoga is viewed as an expression of the heart and a voluntary co-participation with nature, which we are all a part of. The central philosophy of Anusara Yoga is based on the view that everything is a manifestation of the Divine and all that we experience is a form of the Divine's desire to experience itself. Our bodies, minds, hearts and souls are all forms of this Divinity, and we all have the ability to recognize this. Yoga is the scientific art of remembering our true nature - a discipline of aligning with the pulsation and the flow of Nature and of recognizing and celebrating all parts of ourselves.

The Anusara teaching style blends the teacher's heart-oriented attitude and postural instructions with specialized technical knowledge. There is also an emphasis on remembering the spiritual purposes of hatha yoga, which includes reconnecting with our innate goodness and making yoga an expression from the inside out. This all-inclusive yoga recognizes and honors each person's unique abilities and limitations and uses alignment principles to enhance the student's overall experience. It is through the limitations of the body/mind that we discover that our true nature is boundless goodness and vast luminous Consciousness. The body/mind is a gift to help us discover our true greatness, and recognize our worthiness to experience the highest sense of freedom.

The poses in Anusara Yoga are considered to be "heart-oriented", and are expressed from "inside out". Instead of only trying to control the body and mind from the outside, the poses originate from a deep artistic feeling inside. There is an emphasis on remembering the spiritual purpose of hatha yoga, which includes reconnecting with our innate goodness, power, and beauty, and expressing ourselves from that divine place.