This is a hard-to-find video/DVD, and it's a rare opportunity to see a yoga practice led and actually modeled by Anusara yoga founder John Friend. (In his more recent DVD releases, which have been filmed live at various conferences, Friend uses a female model.) The goal of this session is to provide an asana practice which prepares your body for seated meditation. Accordingly, the practice involves approximately 50 minutes of postures and then an additional 10 minutes in meditation, for a total of 60 minutes.

The main menu of the DVD offerings the following breakdown:

Introduction 1
Poses 2-9
10-17
18-25
Meditation
Sitting Instructions 26
Meditation Practice 27

If you click on any of the above pose segments, there are also names and chapter points for each of the individual postures.

Friend begins by taking some time to set you up in mountain pose. He then moves into a sort of mini sun salutation series which includes standing forward bend, lunge, down dog, child's pose, and baby cobra, ending with a standing backbend. The standing pose segment is short, focusing on just wide-legged standing forward bend and side angle pose.

Coming to a lying position, Friend moves into some hamstring openers (reclined leg, thread-the-needle) as well as a reclined twist and bridge pose. Moving to a seated position, Friend continues to work on opening the hamstrings as well as the hips with cobbler's pose, head-to-knee pose, baby cradle, wide-legged seated forward bend, cow seat, pigeon, dying warrior twist, and finally, child's pose.

Instructor Comments:
As mentioned above, the active portion of the practice ends after about 50 minutes. Friend then begins to provide instruction on setting up seated meditation. With music playing softly, he continues to offer pointers on form, alignment, and breathing for approximately 6 minutes, while the final 3-4 minutes consist of music only as the credits begin to roll. There is no savasana, although Friend suggests that you can add this on after the meditation. Overall, this is a nice little practice that is appropriate for all levels of yoga practitioners. It is certainly not limited to those who would like to meditate, but it is definitely well-suited to this purpose. In particular, this practice might be good for those who would like to begin a meditation practice but would really benefit from a focused asana practice beforehand. If you are familiar with Anusara Yoga, you will know that Anusara means "opening to grace"--grace, love, and devotion are themes of every Anusara practice, including this one. Friend teaches here via voiceover, and I found him to be significantly more low-key than on his more recent live releases (the Anusara Grand Gathering DVD set as well as the Omega Yoga series).

Beth C (aka toaster)