Talk:Anusara School of Hatha Yoga

Spirals?

this is lame, what about all the spirals and stuff?

yeah, lame as usual bout spirals, chanting, guardian angels and stuff —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.187.91.50 (talk) 18:04, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Spirals are there, as is the invocation. Morganfitzp (talk) 02:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

...and they've since been removed, but can still be found in the article's edit history. Morganfitzp (talk) 20:39, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Transliteration

In the "Opening invocation" section, the roman transliteration doesn't match the devanagari Sanskrit. The correct transliteration of the devanagari of the three middle lines is:

(2) sachidananda mutayai (3) nisapapachaya shanataya (4) niralamabaya tejase

I don't know the quote, but it appears to me likely that the devanagari was done by someone not too familiar with it. At least in the shanataya/shantaya, it is the roman shantaya that is correct. The translation also isn't so good, more of a paraphrased interpretation. Aftermath (talk) 03:19, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Name

anusara.com says "Anusara (a-nu-sar-a), means 'flowing with Grace,' 'flowing with Nature,' 'following your heart.'"

This seems to be all that can be drawn from the website in terms of explaining the name. It doesn't even say that the idea is that they are talking about Sanskrit. But since this is yoga, and since the same page contains more "translations" of what is evidently Sanskrit ("Om Namah Shivaye Gurave 'I honour the essence of being the auspicious one, the luminous teacher within and without'") it is safe to assume that we are talking about Sanskrit anusāra. This (according to MW) has the meaning of "going after, following", and hence "custom, usage, prevalence, conformity, normal condition", etc. I am not sure how this is supposed to give rise to "flowing with Grace", let alone "following your heart". --dab (𒁳) 12:05, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The 2012 John Friend scandal

I moved the section about the current scandal into a subsection of Anusara founder, John Friend. As the scandal concerns Friend and his company, Anusara Inc., and not the practice of Anusara as a whole, it belongs as a sub-heading to Friend. As a Wikipedia article, the presentation of information must neither be glowing nor degrading, but simply factual and citable. Morganfitzp (talk) 00:13, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree that the scandal is limited in effect or scope to Anusara, Inc and it's owner. We can start with the public perception of Anusara yoga. Is it aligned with or a cover for Wicca? There is some definite fallout for the reputation of the system itself. Then, there is the huge emotional effect on the Anusara community: I have spoken with many teachers and read several accounts of the challenges teachers and students are having in staying focused on the practice and distinguishing it from disheartening news. I can site several teacher blogs if you ask. Next, please look at the exodus of teachers, all citing a lack of alignment with Anusara. This has led to open questioning from new students on every blog whether they want to begin teacher training. John Friend's letter to teachers says that Anusara will be more teacher-led as opposed to John Friend led. Organizational shifts lead to philosophical shifts which lead to shifts in practice.

This is a rather singular and notable unfolding of events that is effecting every person that practices Anusara and it deserves to be more than a sub-heading in one person's biography. I titled it the "John Friend" scandal not because it was limited to him in scope but because all allegations focused on his actions.

--> Update: still thinking about this one.

Blazing Solar Flames

I fully agree with Blazing Solar Flames being un-cited as there are no references to it being the coven's name besides blog comments. I read Wikipedia's guidelines and I see that I was incorrect in including the name.

regarding Morganfitsp's comment article should not be degrading:

I wrote article not to degrade but to record. It is the nature of the activities that is degrading and shocking. And while jfexposed is no longer up and was a shady enterprise, it's shocking nature is what forced attention and I don't think that should be lost. There are sufficient references to the website to verify it was there and what it contained. Admonitions of guilt from JF on two counts and his discussing the contents are enough to justify giving it mention. Todd Tomorrow (talk) 02:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, morganfitzp for cleaning up duplicate references and adding wl's.

Just my 2 cents. The way the story is breaking and being reported, and who's reporting it is perhaps only relevant in terms of where it started. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. We need to stick to facts, not who's reporting what. Yes this has made mainstream reporting, that was inevitable given that Yoga is a pretty big business in America. What is relevant are the accusations and the rebuttals, and eventually any court cases and their outcomes. Please see wikipedia's guidelines about biographies of living people. The defunct website jfexposed.com is relevant only in that is what started it all. I'm now starting to have concerns about the neutrality of the article. See WP:NPOV. The rest of the article has little about Friend's life, the structure of Anusara Inc, nothing about any other teachers. It's actually very short for such a large organization. Yet the scandal is taking up about a third to a half of the article. It's as if nothing about Anusara or John Friend or any of the other teachers is important, just the scandal.TheRingess (talk) 06:31, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree. cf: Kripalu Center. Morganfitzp (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Clearly as things unfold, this article will be in flux. In the long run, most of this information will be boiled down to, "In 2012 John Friend was involved in a scandal, resulting in..." and hopefully 99% of the article will actually be about this style of yoga. Morganfitzp (talk) 03:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Blazing Flames is reported as the name of the coven, as reported to the Washington Post by three employees[1]

I agree with TheRingess regarding apparent NPOV problem in the article. The organization/corporation should be described - apparently almost all Anusara yogo takes place in a network that is directly tied to this company. Why is there no description of the corporation? If anyone thinks the company shouldn't be described on this page, please respond. LaTeeDa (talk) 16:44, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

There's an important distinction between a practice and an organization that governs a group of people that propagate that practice. People can practice Anusara Yoga on their own and this has nothing to do with Anusara Inc., thus the two are separable. Morganfitzp (talk) 19:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

In the future there might be more of a break between the organization and the practice, but it seems that to date most of the life of this practice was centered on leadership, guidance documents, certifications, events, and a web site working for or published by Anusara Inc. Additionally, the corporation holds trademarks to the terms Anusara and Anusara yoga[2], so perhaps it is legally difficult for studios to teach this style of yoga separate from the corporation. Your edit makes it seem like the only relevance of the company was providing certification for trainers - shouldn't we describe a larger relationship than that here? LaTeeDa (talk) 06:58, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

India? Hinduism?

Just saw that this article has been rated as mid-importance for both the India and Hinduism WikiProjects. Why? Anusara is an American style of yoga, and a newer one at that. Although it borrows some philosophy from Hindu texts, I hardly think that the world's Hindus would say, "Oh yes, this style of yoga created by John Friend in 1997 is moderately important to us." In reference to the nation of India, Anusara is of even lower importance, so little that it does not belong in that category. Morganfitzp (talk) 02:19, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for changing it to Low. Morganfitzp (talk) 02:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Should this page be part of the Health and Fitness project?

The article Yoga is categorized as high importance on Wikipedia:WikiProject Health and fitness. Should this article also be on that project? Maybe as mid importance? LaTeeDa (talk) 07:08, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

New John Friend (yogi) article

Much of the editing of this article in 2012 has been less about Anusara Yoga and more about its founder, John Friend. Friend has since stepped down from Anusara and gone on to other things. Editors can now write about Friend in greater detail at John Friend (yogi). This page will continue to focus on the style of yoga that Friend created, Anusara Yoga. Morganfitzp (talk) 18:35, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Anusara School of Hatha Yoga yoga

What's with the Anusara School of Hatha Yoga yoga thingee going through the whole text? That's freaky! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.151.18.178 (talk) 10:27, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

This article has been rebranded, presumably by a member of that school. And I see, anonymous poster 87.151.18.178, that there have been some editing wars about it. I agree, however, that this is an effort to rebrand a product by an interested party and a possible violation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy. Morganfitzp (talk) 19:06, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

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Energy Loops

Articles on belief systems, traditions and practices (that are notable enough to have an article), can summarize those. However, this section lacks inline citations (it actually is completely unreferenced even), but also presents claims as if they were established processes, then discovered: "John Friend noticed [...]".
My impression is that sources should be referenced and those statements about the system should ideally be credited to those sources or authors. An example that is already better would be: "John Friend wrote in [...] that [...]". Or: "According to John Friend, he noticed [...]."<reference> This avoids making extraordinary (or even pseudoscientific) metaphysics claims in Wikipedia's voice like if they were facts, while showing the reader where those claims come from (and where to read more about it). Thanks, — PaleoNeonate — 17:21, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Resolved

There were no wp:secondary sources describing the school's system in details such as was presentend in the article, so most of it had to be removed to conform with Wikipedia's policy. KarlPoppery (talk) 13:47, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

A quick web search for "energy loops Anusara" turns up lots of sources. Why not cite several of these instead of downsizing the article? Morganfitzp (talk) 12:12, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not agains't expending the article, as long as every info added is sourced. If the claim made is of a medical nature in any way, the source should respect the high standards of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). KarlPoppery (talk) 13:57, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Is yoga a medical tradition? Or is it a philosophical tradition? Morganfitzp (talk) 11:20, 15 May 2017 (UTC)