A Teacher is Always Learning

By Emily Weitz

I recently went to study with John Friend, the founder of Anusara yoga. I was amazed by the intensity of the practice, not just in inspiring joy, but in bringing up the range of emotions from frustration and vulnerability to freedom and lightness. Each day was divided into two intensive sessions, and after each morning I felt an initial feeling of bliss followed by this intense vulnerability. We were doing a lot of backbending in the mornings, and I was surprised that it wasn't just joy I found there. With my wide open heart, it was also fear, insecurity, and sensitivity. In the evenings, John moved us into hip openers and forward bends. Deep ones.He encouraged us to face the darkness, to move right to the center of it, and to find the light from there. To move into the darkest, hardest situations in our lives and to shine brilliantly, to endure, to overcome. The practice brought me through some really painful truths, and in the end, I knew I was stronger for having faced them. Was it all blissful? No. But the moments of bliss that I found were real, because they encompassed the darkness as well as the light.