Feb. 15th 2012.

This is a letter of love. This is a letter of self love and self honesty. I can’t believe we are here. Wherever this is. I will try to keep this brief, to make way for all the other words and letters on the internet. It just seems to come down to this.

I followed my teachers to these teachings because they resonated for me. I love the humor and the intelligence of Anusara. I love the playfulness, the permission to theme. I love the system. I love the community. I will continue to love the community. So many people have outlined an amazing mandala of reasons why they must now turn in their license. I sigh as I write this, but the time for me to do this is now.

For me the bottom line is this. I no longer wish to be affiliated with a single system. I believe in yoga, what I know of it, taught to me by a river of teachers that includes but is in no way limited to John Friend. My first Anusara teachers in 1999 were Sue Elkind and Naime Jezzeny. I followed their beautiful energy into a life-saving teacher training that coincided with 9-11, 2001. They cultivated an amazing kula in Los Angeles and introduced us to other teachers Noah Maze, Mitchel Bleier, Desiree Rumbaugh, Douglas Brooks, Sally Kempton, Carlos Pomeda, and so many others instrumental to Anusara in a conversation of yoga.

As 13 years of Anusara went by I went further down the rabbit hole of body/mind exploration. From my desire to endlessly share what I’m learning and exploring with students I began to feel limited by the system that is supposed to offer my freedom. In the years of Anusara’s “growth” there have been questions as to the right formula for teaching a class, debates over how many attributes the “Divine” has (7, 8, 9?) and introduction of the confused ”Shiva/Shakti Tantra Primer”. I find these strictures strangely confining. We are all meant to try on our bodies and discover and share and learn and laugh and play and innovate and excavate and lab our experience. While initiated into this phenomenal exploratory process by the system of Anusara Yoga, I have inquired into and pulled from multiple other systems in the continuous search for the highest knowledge of the human body.

Questions over licensing, and the reputation of the brand are the catalysts that have now prompted me to move. The signs have never been so clear. I want to integrate as a human. I want to learn to follow my inner prompting. I want to live life on my own terms, and to facilitate others to do the same. The Anusara method is amazing in allowing people to do that. And it taught me, to constantly follow my heart, which is now aimed at something more limitless than Anusara has become.

I am most grateful to John Friend for serving as a grand catalyst on this stage of the conversation of yoga. His innovations and permission to invent blew open possibilities for many people to become the great teachers they are today. He has blown my heart open, changed my body, my life, the entire spectrum of possibilities. But it now seems like the system and culture of Anusara have become more codified in a way that feels restrictive. I now wish to take everything I have learned to endlessly, tirelessly learn more and create more.

I remain a certified Anusara Yoga teacher, despite the fact that I will be surrendering my license. I plan to fulfill all of my scheduled Anusara events for all students studying Anusara Yoga with me this year, and those who are enrolled in my programs throughout the world. I am excited for Anusara programming through the end of 2012. These programs and teacher training hours will count for anyone accruing credit to become a licensed Anusara Inspired or Certified teacher; and I will encourage any students who endeavor to walk that path.