BLACK LOTUS YOGA

This is the basic teacher training program for Black Lotus Yoga. The program is designed to give you a comprehensive overview of the Black Lotus system, together with an experience of the practice that is rich and robust enough that you can return to your community and share Black Lotus Yoga in an authentic and grounded way. The program trains you to teach Black Lotus Yoga from the beginning, even to people who have no prior yoga experience, starting with the Foundations sequence and continuing through the First and Second Series.

Apart from the asana, this program covers basic pranayama, meditation and philosophy, all of which are integral to the Black Lotus approach. The program gives you a foundation in all four of these essential practices, so you can share something meaningful about each, and integrate them all into your teaching.

Upon completion of the program, you will have a broad overview of the Black Lotus system, a working knowledge of the first three sequences, a budding pranayama practice, a taste of real meditation, and an evolving relationship with the psychodynamic principles of yoga as a unique contemplative form. You will also have some well informed notions of the spiritual and philosophical roots of modern yoga, together with an inspired framework in which to explore.

the practices

This training has a strong element of practice, with daily asana, pranayama, meditation and philosophy sessions. In our morning practices, we explore the vinyasa sequences that are available to us in all shades or variants, to grasp the deeper movement patterns behind them. In this way, we refine our practice, learning how to breathe into the forms, and how to draw ourselves both into and out of them most gracefully.

In pranayama, we contemplate the movement of the breath with a sense of natural reverence, feeling the breath as the pulse of life. We learn to use subtle postural shifts, together with the crucial techniques of bandha and mudra to support that inner movement, while making room within ourselves for consciousness to breathe.

Meditation practice, for us, must be light, natural and unstrained. So we will luxuriate in short and spontaneous meditation sessions throughout the day. We will understand meditation as an activity of the deeper mind, and not as something that we accomplish, but something that we discover within ourselves. Through the practice of meditation, we learn to be ourselves—more naturally.

Our philosophical studies will help us place the practice in a wider context, and also help us enhance our practice by enriching our understanding of its meaning. We will give special emphasis in these studies to the old theological idea, shared by many world religions, that the body is a sacred site in which the divine presence contemplates itself, and in which we, with that spirit, may find ourselves aligned. At the same time, we will undo our dogmatic attachments to these same ideas by studying related philosophies that emphasize the primacy of seeing and feeling over thinking and voicing, especially as modes of relating intimately to the ground of being.

the training

This program is designed from the ground up to support you in becoming a Black Lotus Teacher. To this end, we study the Black Lotus system inside and out. We learn how the system works, how the postures are arranged, how the sequences build upon one another, and how to work with them in the most enriching of ways—to explore the miracle of the breathing body.

Beyond learning the system itself, we reflect on teaching from all angles, from giving guided classes to running a Mysore room. We learn about how to support our students emotionally and energetically as they practice—without interfering in their experience—and how to respect and uphold boundaries, even as we open ourselves to the field of intimate experience.

We study the art of manual assisting, and we learn to use touch to help students find the asanas themselves, without ever pushing their bodies from the outside. We practice copiously upon one another, to bring some real experience of this crucial art into our own hands. In this process, we learn much about the subtle body. We learn to read the movements of prana and apana so we can understand how the subtle breath wants to move, see where it may be obstructed, and propose some gentle interventions to support the breath in moving in a more natural way.

Through the development of these skills and practices, we hone our abilities to teach.

the schedule

The program is organized into four full practice weeks. At a glance:

Monday-Thursday (7am-2pm)

Friday (7am-10am)

Saturday and Sunday (off)

Usual Day

7:00-9:00 - mysore

9:00-9:30 - break

09:30-11:30 - alignment/assisting/teaching lab

11:30-12:00 - break

12:00-2:00 - pranayama/philosophy/chanting

Guided classes will be held on Fridays.

venue

Our immersion will be held in a quiet, spacious yoga shala, made of wood and metal and glass, nestled in a beautiful, protected piece of forest on the edge of the old center of Sintra. This is an extraordinary venue in an enchanted and historical city, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to spend a month here with you. Sintra has a wide spectrum of accommodation options, so you are sure to find something that works for you.

no accreditation

There will be no accreditation program for teachers of Black Lotus Yoga. Instead, there will be ongoing trainings, encouragement and support for all who would teach Black Lotus Yoga. At present, this training is our premiere offering for teachers. It is designed to prepare you to teach. But authorization is neither necessary nor desirable. Anyone who remains grounded in the system, who explores and admires the sequencing, who feels the inner movement of the yoga and feels called to share it with an open heart, will have my quiet blessing to teach. Just be kind and be real.

logistics

Sintra is 25 minutes from Lisbon by car. It is possible to take public transportation to Sintra from Lisbon for around €6 . . . From Lisbon International, take the metro to Oriente Station (7 min), then take the train to Sintra Station (47 min). Then walk or take a taxi to the hotel, on whose grounds the shala awaits . . .

Casa Holstein

R. São Sebastião 5, 2710-592

Sintra, Portugal

cancellations

Regardless of reason for cancellation, deposits will not refunded. Deposit amounts may be transferred to another retreat or workshop, minus a €40 administrative fee, and must be used within one year. Please consider your schedule carefully before booking.

Refunds will be calculated as follows:

• Up to 60 days before start of event, 75% of your payment (excluding deposit) minus €40 admin fee

• Up to 59-31 days before start of event, 50% of your payment (excluding deposit), minus €40 admin fee

• Within 30 days of event, there will be no refund and no deposit transfer to another retreat/workshop.