Product Details

• Actors: John Friend
• Directors: John Friend
• Format: NTSC, Widescreen
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Anusara
• DVD Release Date: June 1, 2007
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0979150906
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,600 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

About the Actor

John Friend is one of the most charismatic and highly respected hatha yoga teachers in the world. Blending an uplifting Tantric yoga philosophy with an entertaining sense of humor and a profound knowledge of biomechanics, John's teaching style guides each student to live every moment fully from the heart. Students often comment in amazement that they can perform their yoga poses under John's guidance with a level of creative freedom and inner power that they have never experienced before. Above all, John respects and honors his students with a great deal of loving-kindness and inspires them to see their own unique beauty and divine goodness. In 1997 John founded Anusara Yoga® to promote his innovative vision. Today, Anusara Yoga is one of the most popular and fastest growing schools of hatha yoga in North America with an expanding presence in the UK, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

Product Description

In this rocking class, John Friend teaches energizing backbends and hand-balancing postures. Using Anusara Yoga's Universal Principles of Alignment, he demonstrates how to use boundaries to channel the longing for freedom in order to experience the highest delight of knowing one's essence. Feel the pulse of Spirit move through you and affirm the goodness of life by using The Dance of Yes and No to lead us to the awareness that we are Supreme consciousness. This one and a half hour class was recorded live as part of a week-long retreat with John Friend at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. It was originally available as a live web broadcast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Intermediate yoga - time to get crazy!, April 19, 2009

By 

ComputerLiteraryYoga Guy (West Chester, PA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Anusara Yoga® with John Friend - The Dance of Yes and No (DVD)

This is the 3rd of 4 DVDs. While "Laxshmi Rocks Me" and "Riding the waves of Grace" are both beginner classes (the former is more of a beginner while the latter is kind of...well...kind of a lead up to this DVD...but maybe not required for people who do yoga) and stand on their own...well...this one isn't.

Personally - I think one will need to go through the 1st 2 DVDs, kind of "master" them, before taking on "The Dance of Yes and No".


With this DVD, we hit the more intermediate and advanced poses. Keep your windows open, the air circulating, and water nearby -- cause you're in for a workout and some core strengthening!

Once again, the focus is on "principles of alignment". We gradually build up to more advanced poses. Be forewarned, by 10th minute, I was already heated up and dripping sweat! And we weren't even doing the advanced poses!

We do some hand balancing poses, and some backbends : crow, pigeon, wheel,side-arm balance (i.e. vashistasana) . As usual...we work up to it, with each pose preparing and aligning us for the next one.

Note, this is a more traditional intermediate yoga class.

Good DVD...but once again, my big complaint was the camera focusing on John talking instead of focusing on the person doing the demonstration of the pose. Like...WTF? I don't mind the camera moving towards the instructor and to the energy of the class...but if you're going to do 2-3 iterations of a pose...at least have the focus of 1 iteration of a pose on the person who was hired to demo these asanas!

It's a 90 minute DVD...but on the first viewing...it took me over 2 hours as I had to rewind, listen, and do. At times, I'd try to get a glimpse of the class on the DVD doing a pose so I would at least have a visual image. John does his best to talk people through the pose -- but sometimes -- you just need a visual.

regardless - by the end of the DVD...i was craving shavasana (i.e. just lying on the ground, doing nothing).

These poses are challenging and may take time to master...or even...at least get a proper feel for. I certainly do feel that way, and probably be watching and practicing with this DVD before I move on to the final DVD.

Like - I said...good DVD, but the bummer is the lack of a full demonstration on certain poses. You'll just have to listen carefully, and work your way through it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Friend, November 24, 2009

By 

Un francais en angleterre (Londres, UK) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Anusara Yoga® with John Friend - The Dance of Yes and No (DVD)

This DVD is part of a series, including "Lakshmi Rock Me", "Riding the Waves of Grace" and "Growing a Lotus". I'll provide here the same comment I gave for "Riding the Waves of Grace" as I found the 2 work outs to be of similar difficulty. I'm not an advanced yogi by any mean and I'm fairly inflexible in my hips but I still found it possible to tag along. I agree with the first reviewer that this is intense stuff though, but maybe more from an energetic standpoint than from a flexibility standpoint.

This DVD is part of a series by John Friend. It was taped live at a workshop. The routine is a good workout and I liked the tone and attitude of John Friend. He is colloquial and down to earth, with a good sense of humour. Like the other DVDs in the series, it's probably too narrowly focused to be of use for regular practice, but it's a good source to learn a bit about the principles behind anusara yoga (Friend's "branch" of yoga).