a pathway to practice
explore the dynamic structure of black lotus yoga
the architecture
of black lotus yoga
levels & variants
There are six sequences in Black Lotus Yoga, and these are arranged by ascending levels of difficulty. To each level, there are three variants or shades—white, gray and black. The white variant of each level is the most accessible, the gray has more challenge, and the black makes some intriguing but sometimes unreasonable demands.
These variants all shade into one another, and they are meant to be combined together to make the practice. It will often make sense to combine white, gray and black elements of the same sequence into a single practice, and to combine these elements uniquely on different days. Once you are grounded in the gray variant of any particular level, you can move up to the white or gray variant of the next. You need not sort out the black variant of any level before advancing. The black should not be thought of as definitive. It represents an amplification of the sequence that may be too much for most students on most days.
In any case, the point is not always to swallow the most difficult variant that one can handle, (though certain tough-minded people will need to approach it that way.) Rather, the point is to have a deep, balanced yoga practice that is ever evolving and rich with opportunity for new exploration and discovery. The variant system offers clear guidance on scaling the Black Lotus sequences to unique needs and circumstances. Beyond this system, there are no formulaic protocols for adapting or extending the sequences. Such things should evolve organically, outside the constraints of formal rules or prescriptions.
The Weekly Flow
Exploring Sequences and Shades
In Black Lotus Yoga there are six practice days in the week. The idea is that you practice each of the sequences that are available to you at least once during that period. You ascend as the week progresses, from Level II and beyond, and you end back at the beginning, with Level I.
Each sequence has its own melody and pitch, and should be learned and recited as a whole. This is unlike Ashtanga, where you learn a new sequence by adding its postures to the end of another. In Black Lotus, you take the sequence entire. You begin with a light shade and darken as you go.
Level One
This is the soil of Black Lotus Yoga, the dark marl out of which the whole organism grows. This grounded sequence awakens the breath, and rouses the subtle forces upon which the process of yoga depends. Though balancing itself generously between opening and closing, this sequence emphasizes the tonification of apana, the dissolving force of the exhale, to ground your psychical energies and reconnect you to the earth.
Level Two
This is the water that softens the seeds and urges them to open, the overflowing spring, whose movement breaks up stagnation and clears space for things to move. The running water rinses away old patterns, dissolves old forms, and allows you to emerge refreshed and renewed. Though balanced, this sequence quickens prana, the receptive force of the inhale, while demanding considerable strength and steadiness at the same. Students have dubbed this “the crying sequence,” because of the way it churns the heart.
Level Two
This is the water that softens the seeds and urges them to open, the overflowing spring, whose movement breaks up stagnation and clears space for things to move. The running water rinses away old patterns, dissolves old forms, and allows you to emerge refreshed and renewed. Though balanced, this sequence quickens prana, the receptive force of the inhale, while demanding considerable strength and steadiness at the same. Students have dubbed this “the crying sequence,” because of the way it churns the heart.
Level Three
This is the fire sequence, for it stokes the inner flame and sets the body into a long, slow burn. This sequence is rather technical. Many of the postures require sophisticated work with the forces of prana and apana. Having awakened these forces already, this sequence demands that you interlace them together, more tightly than before. This takes you into the exquisite art of balancing opposing forces on subtle levels, and creating mudras.
Level Four
This is the nectar sequence, and the sequence of the moon. It uses the foundation developed in the three preceding sequences to open up new channels, and allow the sap of the body to flow. The postures are strong, simple and deep, and they unroll with a melody of their own. They draw the prana in long fluid lines through the hollow spaces of the body, then raise it upward through the crown, leaving you with a feeling of being wide awake.
The pranic consort of the nectar sequence, this one radiates with the glorious power of the sun. This sequence could be described as feminine by comparison to its nectarean counterpart, where the feminine is fiercely awakened to its own power. This sequence has some of the most expansive postures in the Black Lotus curriculum. These postures encourage dormant powers to awaken, while making space within the body for those powers to rise.
Level Five
The pranic consort of the nectar sequence, this one radiates with the glorious power of the sun. This sequence could be described as feminine by comparison to its nectarean counterpart, where the feminine is fiercely awakened to its own power. This sequence has some of the most expansive postures in the Black Lotus curriculum. These postures encourage dormant powers to awaken, while making space within the body for those powers to rise.
Level Five
Level Six
This is the crowning sequence of Black Lotus Yoga, arranged to take the fiercest of warriors to their gasping edge, where they are reminded that real strength lies with softness, presence and surrender to the higher forces of the heart. This formidable sequence makes some truly strident demands. It requires tremendous strength and suppleness at the same time. But it also points beyond itself, to endless possibilities, to remind us that yoga involves an open-hearted movement into the unknown.
Level Six
This is the crowning sequence of Black Lotus Yoga, arranged to take the fiercest of warriors to their gasping edge, where they are reminded that real strength lies with softness, presence and surrender to the higher forces of the heart. This formidable sequence makes some truly strident demands. It requires tremendous strength and suppleness at the same time. But it also points beyond itself, to endless possibilities, to remind us that yoga involves an open-hearted movement into the unknown.
internal alignment
Black Lotus Yoga works with opposing forces of breath and invites these to align. When breath aligns, the body opens up, revealing countless currents of sensation. The practice is to remain present with sensation, allowing it to turn with old thoughts and memories in the hollow spaces of the body, then dissolve into the emptiness from which it arose. Through this practice, we give ourselves space, we give ourselves room to breathe, and we steep in the quiet exhilaration of coming undone.
Alignment is essential to this process. It opens the subtle channels through which the breath can move and also encourages the breath to move in a balanced way, with rising and falling forces supporting one another the whole time. When the breath is balanced, moving without obstruction through the body, there is a natural flow of creative energy, one that rinses away the sediment of the past and allows the mind to unravel from the inside.
Bandha and mudra are further enhancements of this process. They inspire the ascending breath to flow more richly through the central channel of the body, from the altar of the pelvis through the crown of the head, and thus they accelerate the natural process of deep yogic breathing by which our mental tangles naturally come undone.
In Black Lotus Yoga, we use these exquisite and nearly forgotten techniques of bandha, mudra, and alignment to deepen our experience of yoga practice. They become an integral part of our own breath and movement, and we feel them both inside and out. We feel them refreshing us with gentle surges of a sweet, creative force, whose presence magnetizes our devotion. And as we learn to nurture this presence, and make space for its natural movement through our bodies and minds, our yoga becomes a potent form of renewal.
Relation to Ashtanga
Ashtanga Vinyasa taught me most of what I know about breath-based vinyasa yoga. Most importantly, it awakened within me the same somatic intelligence that communicated Black Lotus Yoga. In this sense, Black Lotus practice represents a continuation of my exploration of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, and not some sudden departure from it.
In actual practice, Black Lotus can be explored alongside Ashtanga, in the same Mysore space. The two practices have the same cadence, the same rhythm, the same harmonious tones. In an energetic sense, they are perfectly compatible. And my students have been practicing them both, side by side, for several years now. These two yogas are like sisters, risen from the same maternal source, with the same spirit, but with different souls.
I continue to welcome both Ashtanga Vinyasa and Black Lotus Yoga in my practice spaces. Some students are best served with traditional Ashtanga Vinyasa, others with Black Lotus Yoga, and still others with a mix, and we discuss the matter together, to come to an informed decision, based on individual needs, desires and circumstances. I have no intention to convert Ashtangis to Black Lotus Yoga. I make no claim to the superiority of this practice. I never set out to innovate the Ashtanga system, nor to invent another yoga. In truth, I did not invent this yoga at all. It was rather given to me, through an act of grace, and so I give it to you.
Black Lotus Yoga is a reflection of the profound wisdom of the body, the wisdom that awakened in me through the Ashtanga Vinyasa ritual. And it gives us another way of touching that wisdom, and communing with it, through breath and movement.
Relation to Vinyasa
Black Lotus Yoga is a form of vinyasa yoga, just like Ashtanga Vinyasa itself. It is sequenced with the same movement of breath, according to traditional principles, drawn from the lineage of T. Krishnamacharya.
Black Lotus Yoga is meant to be practiced in the traditional Mysore style, where students follow the lead of their breath, and where teachers hold space for that movement, and offer simple guidance and support. In the Mysore space, Black Lotus Yoga can be explored in its full potency. But the sequences are highly adaptable, and come with defined variants and alternate forms, so they can be the basis of a wide spectrum of led classes with a high degree of improvisation.
Vinyasa teachers who want a firm foundation for their led classes, an energetic template upon which to expand, will find Black Lotus Yoga quite compelling. Here is a form of vinyasa yoga that is grounded in tradition, grounded in an understanding of internal alignment, with a progressive curriculum for students to advance to the heights, that nonetheless encourages experimentation and spontaneous play.
Here then is something that could transform the field of vinyasa as we know it, empowering both students and teachers to explore the intelligence of yoga in a more open, direct and personal way, and helping modern yoga to evolve.