Bouncing into Graceland

John Friend's unique presentation of precise alignment and spiritual principles has thousands of American yogis flocking to his Anusara Yoga and flowing with Grace.

By Laura Fraser

Las Vegas is an odd place for a yoga workshop, particularly one on Anusara Yoga. This hatha yoga system, developed by John Friend in 1997, teaches that everything in the world—your smile, my Downward Dog, Vegas's clanging slot machines—is an expression of the divine. Anusara, which in Sanskrit means "flowing with Grace," emphasizes moving in concert with the magical course of energy that is life and consciousness, and expressing it through the body, heart, and spirit. This spiritual focus, combined with a concise system of biomechanical principles that derive largely from Iyengar Yoga, teaches students to align with the divine.

The divine may seem elusive in a place like Las Vegas, but nearly 200 people—Anusara groupies, yogis of all stripes, and Vegas dancers—have come to a gated high school to take a workshop with Friend, a former financial analyst who lives in The Woodlands, Texas, an upper-middle-class town near Houston. Like all of his workshops, this one is crowded and involved a long waiting list. In large cities, yogis have to apply and be selected to attend; often, more people are turned away than are invited to participate.

Even in places like Vegas—where five years ago, yoga was about as common as a royal flush—Anusara has become wildly popular. It's now one of the fastest-growing styles of yoga around, with some 1,000 teachers worldwide and about 200,000 students, some of whom are so devoted that they spend much of their vacation time and disposable income following Friend around the country. And there are plenty of places to go: This year, he's on the road for more than 200 days for his nationwide "Mystical Merry Band Tour 2004." In keeping with the '60s-rock-band spirit, Friend's merry band of followers call themselves Friend Heads.

When I join the Friend Heads in Vegas, I realize that the venue isn't as odd as I had initially thought. In fact, the whole scene is a bit of a glitzy show itself: The colorful lighting for the event was designed by the same people who light Cirque du Soleil. And Friend is known for inviting his assistants to gather together midclass and perform what could be considered synchronized yoga. Clapping and even cheering by Friend's students are inevitable after these performances, during which, say, eight advanced yogis may line up and take Vasisthasana (Side Plank Pose), roll over in unison into Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward-Facing Bow Pose), and then roll back.

In an odd way, Anusara Yoga fits perfectly in Vegas because Anusara, too, is big and fun and quintessentially American. With it, Friend has created the ultimate American yoga: It's upbeat, optimistic, entrepreneurial, systematic, and do-it-yourself-friendly, and it has elements of a quick fix. It's spiritual but not dogmatic. It creates a sense of community. And it appeals to Westerners' pioneering spirit by suggesting that there is yet another frontier to conquer—the one inside us. Within this American-friendly structure, Friend has cleverly introduced some of the yogic traditions that are most foreign to the West, creating a framework in which the less-exercised limbs of yoga—pranayama, meditation, philosophy, ethical precepts—can move about freely.

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