What, your yoga teacher is human? Shut the front door!!!

I told myself I wasn't going to comment on the whole John Friend,founder of Anusara yoga, thing...and I am not...sort of. This has to do with all public figures.  We have got to stop putting people on pedestals and allowing celebrity status to take away all of our good common sense. All the people below eat,  go to the bathroom(and do number 2), fart, put their pants on one leg at a time, make mistakes  and just straight mess up sometimes...just like you:

Obama

Oprah Winfrey

The Pope

Barbara Walters

Johnny Depp

Beyonce'

Martin Luther King

Any anybody else you are star struck by...including your yoga teacher.

 If  Obama was really an alien from the planet Voltron who has a diabolical plan to blow up the United States...that would be a problem. If Obama cheated on Michelle but he was doing an outstanding job running the government, that makes him human & has nothing to do with the job we need him for. 

So John Friend had sex with his students and married women? I am not going to have sex with him so what does that have to do with me? Even if I did want to sleep with him, what does that have to do with my yoga practice?  I don't look to my yoga teachers as moral compasses for my life. That is my job.  Sex does not negate the principals of Anusara yoga.  I admit, I don't understand half the stuff my Anusara teachers tell me (Open to Grace...Inner Body Bright or is it Outer Body Bright...WTF?) but never once have I heard someone say that one of the principals was, "don't have sex with married women or your students".  What does that have to do with my alignment in Down Dog or Triangle?

Yes it is yoga and there are moral principals outlined in the Yoga Sutras but again, he is human and everyone falls short sometimes. If someone doesn't want to practice with him after this, that is their prerogative. I mean I get it. That makes him a major douche in many people's books and why would you want to study with a douche? However,  if he still teaches a damn good yoga class and he comes to Charlotte for a workshop, I will attend because It would interesting to learn about Anusara Yoga from the source. Maybe he can actually explain to me what "opening to grace" or "inner body bright" actually means. However,  I will not be asking him for marriage advice .

 Video of the Day

 

Comments

[Sal]

Some interesting and important questions are raised here and the topic is perhaps far too complex and nuanced to reply in a few lines, but... Its true that placing a teacher on a pedestal is both mistaken and dangerous. Yet the fact is that there is a dividing line, there are both teachers and students of yoga, and our place in this dynamic relationship needs to be clear and unambiguous. It is a relationship of power, whether we bristle over that notion or deny its existence. The student looks to the teacher to learn something, or be guided or assisted. This is where the power dynamic begins: "I want to know/learn and have accepted that she/he will show me." It is true that no one should look to their yoga teacher (or anyone for that matter) as a moral compass, but we do in fact look to teachers to show or demonstrate something. What is that something? If it is simply 'Down Dog or Triangle,' then we have decided that yoga is simply asana and nothing more. If we believe it is more than that we must be very clear about what a teacher's role is. Our yoga teacher may in fact not be a "yoga teacher" but a "teacher of asanas or postures." It may seem like I am dicing language or mincing words but I don't think so. When I was in school studying philosophy I did not consider my art history or religious studies professor to be a philosopher. Sadly, the term yoga has come to mean nearly everything (and anything). Is there a thoughtful person who could deny that? I may have a personal understanding of what yoga is but is there universal consensus on that? Clearly not (and in fact, there never was, even in ancient India or any period of time in yoga's history). Even though there are, and always have been, a diversity of perspectives on what yoga is, there are limits that cannot be crossed. Ahimsa may be a 'principle' of yoga but it far more than that. One need not be a yogi or even aspire to be a yogi to know when that principle has be violated. The idea that I can look to someone as a yoga teacher but bracket, deny or avoid seeing an aspect of their life that just doesn't fit simply because it doesn't directly 'have to do with me' seems to me to be out of sync. So then the question becomes what does and doesn't 'fit' when regarding someone as being a 'yoga teacher.' It is absolutely true that sex does not negate the principles of Anusara (or truthfully, yoga in general). But abuse of power, deception and greed do and I suspect considerations like these are what thoughtful individuals find so sad and disappointing about this story. I have no direct (or even indirect for that matter) knowledge about the Anusara controversy to know whether their outrage is well founded or not. I simply do not know what happened or did not happen.

The fortunate side to events like these is that they set the stage for deeper inquiry. Its not essential that we take sides on this issue, but we do need to know where we stand relative to yoga.

Excellent blog, by the way. I'm happy I found it!

[Shanna Small]

Awesome response Sal. I agree with everything. I am glad you found the blog too. Hope to hear more from you.