People in Australia might not know what Anusara yoga is all about. Can you tell me a bit about it and how it evolved?
I founded Anusara yoga in 1997 as a synthesis of over 30 years of practice and study with many of the top yoga masters in the world. My vision was to combine positive, sophisticated philosophy with therapeutic and effective alignment techniques - all to serve a global community with a wide spectrum of cultures.
I started with a few students in the United States, Europe, and even Australia and slowly built the community with high integrity and high standards.
I first came to teach hatha yoga Australia in 1995, before I founded Anusara yoga. I taught in Syndey, Melbourne, and Canberra. I love the Australians for their cheerful, positive attitudes. They are always striving to do their best as students.
How did you get into yoga?
At 13 I began to study the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. My mother also gave me a book on hatha yoga. I would practice by myself in our living room, crashing into our furniture.
In Australia, the yoga scene is much more low key than in America. Can you talk about way that Yogi's in America have become like rock-stars, bringing in huge crowds and headlining festivals. I find it fascinating and I am wondering if you think the Australian yoga scene will evolve in the same fashion?
The percentage of the population practicing yoga in Australia and in the United States is about the same, 5%, with numbers growing in both countries. The difference is that the population in the US is 10 times that of Australia. However, in Sydney, I taught 2 levels with over 125 people in each level for a total of over 250 people – not much smaller than the average size of my weekend workshops in the US. So my experience of the yoga scene in Australia is not hugely different from my experience of the yoga scene in the US.
I think it is necessary to define “rock star.” When we say “rock star” we think of popularity, fame, money driven, glamour, and so on. It implies that the depth of the spiritual content is diminished or placed as secondary to these other superficial motives. There is also a presumption that as things get bigger and more public, the underlying intentions become corrupt. I feel these are misperceptions and create myths about yoga in the modern age.
Classes might be large – 200, 300, even up to 800 or more with the class projected onto large screens. The use of audio-visual equipment is necessary to produce the events so that everybody has a positive experience. Even in large classes, it is possible to best serve the student, to keep it personal, to teach a high level of content, to have a therapeutic physical experience, to have a spiritually transformative experience. I am grateful to magazines and websites like this that can help dispel some of these myths and educate people that even if a class is quite large, the quality of the teachings, content, and personal connection does not, in fact, have to be diminished.
As the numbers of students in Anusara have grown now to over a half million globally, it is very humbling for me. My commitment to serve the spiritual longing of the students is only deeper.