Zoom Online Class Schedule
(all times local Lisbon, Portugal; same as London, 1 hour behind Paris,
5 hours ahead of NYC, 8 hours ahead of San Francisco, etc.):
Zoom I.D. (no password) 207 108 1068
Monday - 8 - 9.30 Asana, Mixed Levels, Lisboa Yoga Loft and live on Zoom
Monday - 10.30 - 12.30 - GUIDED PRACTICE, advanced level students and certified teachers, Lisboa Yoga Loft, and live on Zoom.
Monday - 18.45 -19.30 Pranayama, Zoom only.
Wednesday - 19 - 20.30 Asana, Level 3/4, Lisboa Yoga Loft, and live on Zoom.
Thursday - 18.00 - 19.30 Asana, Level 3/4, Zoom only
Sunday - 1x per moth, 10-12.30, 2.5 workshop, live in person, or via zoom, 20 euros single payment.
Recordings:
Note: any missed classes can be viewed and downloaded at your convenience on this page, at the bottom.
Please only download videos if you have paid a regular membership fee as described here.
Prices:
1 class per week, 40 euros per month
2 classes per week, 50 euros per month
Unlimited, 60 euros per month
Pranayama only, 20 euros per month
Single classes: 10 euros asana, 5 euros pranayama
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Instructions:
To access these classes, sign into your Zoom account, and search for the 'meeting' using my personal i.d. code., no password required:
207 108 1068
Minimum Suggested Material:
- sticky mat, 2 belts (1 long), 2 bricks, 1 chair, bolster, 4 blankets, 1 resistance band, 2 rectangular foams, 1 rope, empty stomach, gratitude.
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Class Recordings
(Please only download if you have paid for the class.
Many Thanks, Billy)
NOTE: Something has happened with my Zoom account. Links are not available right now. I am trying to set up an Odysse account. For now, I only managed to capture Monday morning's Guided Practice, and Wednesday evening class. I will fix this soon. Sorry for any inconvenience. Links below.
Monday Asana, Mixed levels, 30 January
https://odysee.com/@Chapati:f/monday-morning-asana-30-january:e
Monday Asana, Guided Practice, 30 January
there was a problem recording this class. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Monday Pranayama, 30 January
https://odysee.com/@Chapati:f/Pranayama_january30_2023:b
Wednesday Asana, 1 February
https://odysee.com/@Chapati:f/Wed_Asana_February1st_2023:b
Thursday Asana, 2 February
https://odysee.com/@Chapati:f/Thursday_Asana_Feb2nd_2023:a
Text Preamble to Sundays at The Loft, 15 January, 2023
The vedic and yoga texts are clear. The thing that causes human suffering is lack of knowledge of self. In other words, we have forgotten or lost track of the reality of the deep, abiding, untouchable, incorruptible, eternal, resonant being that we are. And then, we become lost in a storm of reactive personalities and learned adaptive behaviours driven by unresolved emotional traumas. We acquire twisted belief structures based on distorted perception, and we make false conclusions based on the very limited ‘evidence’ this distorted mind is able to collect. The ever expanding ego then takes all this mess, solidifies it into material, uses that material to construct and justify its own ‘existence’, and corresponding life view. And, unwatched, the ego then lives a life essentially designed to unconsciously reinforce its chosen structure, builds a defense system that will fight like hell to defend its beliefs, and ignores any and all evidence that might threaten its architecture.
The solution to this mess, of course, is the reverse trajectory. To embark on a long, determined, inspired journey of discovery. To find out who and what we actually are. Not what we think or believe or have been conditioned to conclude we are. But to discover and remove all false conclusions, and leave the self to shine exactly as it is. And the practice of yoga – in all its layers and practices - can be a helpful guide and energizing force along this journey.
However, there are forces on this planet - and people and institutions who work for those forces - who do NOT want us to remember who we are. Because when we are lost in ignorance of our true self, they can hijack and harvest our wasted and unused energy, creativity, life force, and infinite potential. Rudolf Steiner, Sri Aurobindo, Gurdjieff, Thomas Merton, The Quran, The Christian Gnostics, Morpheus from The Matrix, have all written about this dark, nefarious force that wishes to control human behaviour, harvest our unused potential, and enslave us in a prison we think is just ‘normal life’.
To achieve this, this predatory force must keep us confused, off balance, and ignorant. Think of all the institutional pressure and mandates and laws and fear and structures and debt and materialism and reductionist thinking and celebrities and toxic food, toxic air, toxic water, toxic soil, and pills, and television, and noise, and websites, and everyone screaming at everyone that distract us and burden us and confuse us. This is all a trick to keep us distanced from knowing our own nature, distanced from the natural world, and – above all - distanced from the divine. And we fall for the trick every time. Until the whole world is such a mad, insane circus that the vast majority of humanity is happy to live in a box and spend most of their free time watching other people do stuff on a screen.
Which brings us to today’s class. Time. Natural cycles. And our disorientation within that structure. Because our confusion is not only about ‘who’ we are, but also about WHERE we are, and WHEN we are. They mess with time itself. They move the clock forward 1 hour in the spring, and 1 hour back in the autumn. Why? In 51 years of life, I have never heard one rational explanation for this. And then, today’s specific theme, the so-called New Year. No traditional culture I know of puts the New Year on 1 January. Most traditional cultures place it sometime in late winter or early spring. Even our own language and calendar suggest we used to do the same. September – sete, sept, seven. October – oct, oito, octopus, eight. November – nove, neuf, nine. December – deca, decathlon, ten. This means September is really the 7thmonth, which puts March as the first month, the New Year. This makes much more sense.
Winter is a time for reflection. It is cold, wet, windy. There is snow on the ground. It is quiet. The trees, absent of leaves, are dormant. The animals are in hibernation. The sea is up and rough. The food supply thin. It is a time to sit in front of a fire, with some warm, spicy tea, and a book. It is time to eat root vegetables and soup. It is time to sleep, to reflect, to meditate, to think, to wonder. It is the closing of the year, a time for rest and contemplation.
Instead, they have us drinking alcohol, staying up past midnight, shooting off fireworks, and hugging and wishing each other all a ‘Happy New Year’ for two weeks when we all KNOW inside that the timing is completely off. And then we all start making New Year’s resolutions: I’m going to stop this, I’m going to stop that, I’m going to change this, I’m going to change that. All of which, of course, never works. Because it’s absolutely freezing outside. And all we want to do is sit down and be quiet. Just like the plants and animals. They have us igniting and using our powers of vision, intention, manifestation, and creation at the exact wrong time of year. And they do it on purpose.
If you don’t believe me, try an experiment. Spend the next couple months of winter just being quiet. Relaxing. Sleeping. Reflecting. Moving slowly. Being calm, patient, and introverted. Doing small stuff, organizing, reading. And then, in mid-March - when the flowers are popping out, and the birds are singing, and the sun is climbing higher and higher into the sky, and the trees come back to life, and the bears emerge from their dens, and everything wants to make love with everything else – then set your intention and vision, then make your New Year’s resolutions with THAT natural energy and momentum supporting you. And see what happens.
We are non-separate from the natural world. If we can step back into harmony and relationship with that world, we can add voltage and potency to our practice. And then our practice will nourish and accelerate this long journey we all have chosen – consciously, or not – to detach ourselves from the chaos and control and confusion and nonsense. And discover more and more every day, every week, who we are, where we are, when we are, and WHY we are. The dark forces around us want us to believe that there is no purpose to our being, no purpose to this life, no purpose to this creation. Why are they so desperate to push this agenda??!!
Your soul knows why. That’s why we are here. So today, let us take into consideration the fact that it is NOT the New Year. It is, instead, just wintertime. Simple. A beautiful time for reflection and wonder. Asana practice can take us into that reflective, receptive state natural to wintertime. Asana itself can be an art and gesture of reflection. Ultimately, asana can be a tool for tuning and resonance. A tool to help guide us back into harmony with ourselves, with the natural world, and with the divine. A tool to listen to and feel the voice of the deep Self, in order reclaim our sovereignty, our responsibility, and our knowledge of reality. And finally break this long cycle of confusion and suffering.