a pathway to practice
explore the dynamic structure of Black Lotus Yoga
the architecture
of black lotus yoga
levels & variants
Black Lotus Yoga unfolds across six sequences, arranged by ascending levels of difficulty. Each level includes three shades—white, gray, and black. The white variant is the most accessible, the gray brings challenge, and the black represents an amplification of the form—often too much for most students on most days.
These shades are not fixed steps, but gradients meant to blend. A single practice might weave white, gray, and black elements together, and over time, practitioners move fluidly between levels and shades.
The black is not a benchmark to conquer, but one flavor of the practice's expressive range.
The goal is not to chase difficulty, but to build a practice that is evolving, responsive, and rich with discovery. The variant system offers structure without prescription—guidance for scaling the sequences to meet your needs, while leaving room for the practice to unfold on its own terms.
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 Second Series and beyond, and you end back at the beginning, with First Series.
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.
The Six Series
A sixfold progression of breath and form—each sequence opens a unique energetic terrain and invites a deeper unfolding of the body.
First Series
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.
Second Series
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.
Third Series
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.
Fourth Series
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.
Fifth Series
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.
Sixth Series
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 encourages it to move in a balanced way, with rising and falling forces supporting one another. When the breath is balanced, moving without obstruction, there is a natural flow of creative energy 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. 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, refreshing us with gentle surges of a sweet, creative force. 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 the somatic intelligence that later communicated Black Lotus Yoga. In this sense, Black Lotus is a continuation of my exploration of Ashtanga, not a departure.
In practice, the two can coexist—side by side in the same Mysore space. They share a cadence, a rhythm, a tonal harmony. In an energetic sense, they are perfectly compatible. My students have practiced them together for years. These two yogas are like sisters—born of the same source, kindred in spirit, but different in soul.
Some students are best served with traditional Ashtanga, others with Black Lotus, and some with a mix. We decide together, based on individual needs. I never set out to convert, to innovate Ashtanga, or to invent another yoga. I make no claim to the superiority of this practice. This practice came through an act of grace—and so I give it to you.
Black Lotus is a reflection of the body’s wisdom—the same wisdom awakened in me through Ashtanga. It offers another way of touching that wisdom through breath and movement.