Learning to breathe

[Kimberly]

When did you learn to breathe in yoga? I mean really breathe, not just shallow breathing that we walk into the studio with in most cases. What helped you really understand the difference? Was it a particular teacher? Cues? A style? Did three-part breath do the trick? Explore how you learned to breathe and what lessons you can take from your experience and bring to your students.

[regmarlew63]

There were actually two different occasions when I really became aware of my breathing and the impact that breath work can have on a physical being. There were some pretty traumatic times in my life as a new mom. And I was not dealing very well in knowing how to cope and work through my anxieties. I started to explore yoga and what it could bring to my wellness. And I also dove into more holistic measures of living through readings by Dr. Weil and listening to his webinars and following vitamin and eating plans. My first breath work techniques were introduced through Dr Weil and it was the “4-7-8” method. Then he taught how to exhale longer just when you thought your exhalation was complete. And yet another technique was to hold the tongue on the roof of mouth and breathe, exhaling with pursed lips. I found all of these exercises very calming and centering during times of high anxiety moments. I couldn’t believe, how almost instantly, my body would “feel” better by incorporating these little, but powerful techniques. Then, when I started my hatha yoga practice, I learned all about the 3 part breath. The physical effects felt familiar to me, but what it did introduce me to was the focus, the meditation, the centering aspects of breath work. I loved how it helped me in focusing on the “now”. And it was so therapeutic feeling in the way my “run away” thoughts would tame down, and how I could have a more clear perspective on situations I needed to deal with and figure out how I would live through. There isn’t one single day I do not find myself incorporating breath work in my life. Sometimes, it just happens naturally. As if my body and mind have now been trained to make deep breathing and breath work techniques a habit for me. After learning the 3 part breath and the focus it taught me, it was only a short amount of time to master the narrowing of throat to feel the vibration in UJAYI breathing. It just added another layer to the centering breath work brought to my life. For these techniques and awareness, I’m so very grateful. It is a valuable tool for me in my effort to live a healthier lifestyle. I am excited to help students understand the “how tos” and feel for themselves the rewards of using the breath to help in our wellness.

Regina Lewis

[msinghal]

Considering how long I have been practicing asanas (since I was a teenager), my entry to really focused breath work happened pretty late- only about 15 years or so ago, when I took to pranayama. Although my parents had been gently encouraging me to try it for a while, being great role models themselves, the time for me must have not been right. And when it was right, I approached them to help me immerse in the wonderful and revelational world of pranayama. The going was slow though; only a few cycles at first because I would get light headed. With determination, I persisted, adding slowly to the repertoire, building to a sequence of left nostril, right nostril, 3 part, alternate nostril, bhastrika, kapaal bhati, ujjayi, bharamari, and onkara. My father’s prescribed practice always began with centering through pranayama that lasted a good 30 minutes. The asanas came after, constituting a total another 30 to 45 minutes.

As I included pranayama in my daily practice, not only did it become my favorite part of the yoga practice, I became more mindful of breathing during asanas as well. These days, when I do not have time for a full hour of yoga practice at home, I pick pranayama and meditation over asanas.

My favorite class sequence for a 1 hour long class is very likely to follow the same principles in which I have grown up: at least 20 minutes of pranayama before plunging into asanas. I feel the knowledge of pranayama deepens the experience of a student multi-fold. Pranayama massages the internal organs like no other technique does. I would certainly like my students to enjoy the rewards of focused breath work via pranayama and asanas.

[betshellhaas]

The way I learned to breath in yoga seemed as if it was a very gradual process. I remember in the beginning losing my breath often and having a hard time slowing it down. I also had a hard time breathing in and out of my nose. I would want to start panting just to catch my breath. It’s amazing how far I’ve come since then. I also relate the process of my breath with the process of my mind. Yoga slows the mind down, calming and centering it. As my mind became more clear and balanced I found it easier to control my breath. I really understood the difference between shallow and deep breathing when I was introduced to pranayama. It really made me work at controlling the breath and the 3 or 4 part breath definitely helped increase the depth of my breathing. After practicing this more regularly, I began to see a shift in the way I would breath during flowing sequences. I really allowed the breath to begin the movements, going slow and steady following the breath. This is my favorite way to flow! Tammy was a big part of this because she introduced me to yoga, pranayama and the importance of deep breathing. She has shown me many different types of pranayama and in which situations they may be helpful. I believe it’s important to express to students that the movement is done in conjunction with the breath. So maybe instructing “Inhaling to plank, exhaling chaturanga, inhaling upward facing dog…” and so on. I also really love the pranayama technique of putting your right hand on chest, left hand on stomach and breathing into belly, into chest and out of belly, out of chest. It’s a wonderful feeling to place your hands on yourself in a loving manner but also focusing on the breath and body. Checking in with yourself and observing how you feel. I think it is a beautiful thing when someone starts to learn the signs of their body. The breath says so much about us and how we are doing. I think it would be fun focusing on the breath for an entire class.

[LAD92761]

Great question! For me the day I learned…everything changed. It was a lunch hour class in 2003 at Good Bodies in a yoga class taught by Joann Morrisey! She started a little early talking about breath for those of us that didn’t “get it”. First she taught Ujaii breath and then taught lion. I loved Ujaii and have done it ever since, automatically. I love how it centers me, I love the sound, very calming, I love to hear it around me by others. Lion I wasn’t as fond of, felt a little awkward.

Then I fell in love with Kundalini a couple of years ago. Breath took on a whole new meaning but once again that was so important. Breath of Fire! Like a dog panting, and Ivan, the one Kundalini guy in all the class was amazing with his breath of fire! He inspired me to really build on mine, and I found myself doing it in the car from time to time. Breath of fire is wonderful at centering, building heat and energy and teaching endurance. I also love alternate nostril breathing and miss doing that in Kundalini. I need to add that into my practice.

In my second Karma class this week, I decided to take 5 minutes to teach Ujaii. And I will continue that as I can moving forward. Through the last 2 months I have picked up new breathing techniques at BOY. The 4/7/8 and the 5/5. I actually used 4/7/8 with Bridge in my karma slow flow class. Great for centering in warm ups too.

So to me, my practice became meaningful when I learned to breathe. I’m so very lucky to have found Joann and Emily in my journey. (And Ivan!)

[melross1]

So I feel like this is going to make me sound like a big suck up. I learned to breathe well during an online class I was taking, and the teacher kept using lions breath. But when I really learned to breathe was during one of my first classes with Kimberly. She broke it down, had us close our eyes and count our breath in and count our breath our. To begin she counted for us. Then she had us keep counting in our head. And that’s all we did for some time. It seemed a bit odd when we were doing it, but by the end of class I realized that I was breathing well and feeling better.

I notice now when I hold my breath. Yep, I just stop breathing for no reason at all, and I never realized it before. And I breath a lot deeper more often, while practicing I believe I breathe well.

I like to hear teachers remind students often to breath in and out with each movement. Even when we know to do it, it’s such a great reminder and help to keep our minds focused on the breath. I think it helps.

[EmilyD]

This is an interesting question, and one I’ve never really thought about in depth. I started attending classes regularly about a year ago. I had never really thought about breathing before that, and I even remember having a conversation at a Weight Watchers meeting early last summer about how I couldn’t meditate or focus on breathing because my mind wouldn’t slow down.

Fast forward to last fall…my kids were making me crazy one afternoon and I unconsciously took a very deep breath and let it out. Then I did it again. My kids asked if I was mad, and I responded no, but I was trying to breath deeply so I didn’t get mad. That was my aha moment. I can’t remember which teacher influenced it the most, or which class had the biggest impact…I just know that somewhere from May to September my thinking switched without me realizing it. I suddenly started tapping into my breathing to calm my body without realizing it.

There are a few moments I remember from breathing in class that stand out:
1. three part breath: we did this as a group in a kripalu video. The instructor had us lay down and proceeded to really explained it – she had us focus on the movement of our abdomen, ribs, and collarbones. It was calming and empowering. I loved it.
2. alternate nostril breathing: I really disliked this as I tried it the first time. My fingers cramped. It took a lot of focus. But when I finished, I could really feel a difference in my ability to breath – my airways were clearer and so was my mind.
3. breath of fire: I never knew breathing could be an ab workout. 🙂

How will I incorporate this into my teaching? I feel like my answer is always the same – honesty. We ask students to breath at the beginning of every class. Why are we doing it? Will it really have an impact on our daily lives? We are doing it to train our brain. To give us one more tool in the tool box of life. The importance may not happen today, or tomorrow, or next week. But with practice, one day we will use it in our daily lives without realizing it. It will feel good. We will be surprised. We will want to do it again and again.

[sally200]

My breathing is still developing along with my practice. When I first started yoga often I would find myself holding my breath, well maybe not holding it but not breathing. Then my next noticing was I was breathing opposite of what the teacher was saying. I was breathing in when I should be breathing out. My feeling were I was doing something so wrong, but then on day in class the explanation of expanding and contracting
Put it visual context for me. Forward fold as an exp ample. Breath in coming up and out in fold. My breath started to match up with the teacher direction.

My awareness has furthered my breathing. My teacher talks often thru our classes about breath importantance, and I can feel the impact of deep breathing. I know that with each practice I will connect faster and better.

My plan in my classes is to bring awareness and discuss the importance and benefits of controlled breathing.

My awareness has allowed me to breath deeper into poses, and benefit from relaxing from a breathing pace. I usually prepare to sleep with belly breathing. I find myself taking deeper breaths during the day.

[KHuttsell]

Although breathing has always been part of my practice – I feel like it is only recently that I have been able to truly breath.

For years I would follow the cues that were put forth by the teacher. Though I was listening to the cues and placing the breath in the proper timeframe – it still was not something I internalized. The breath to me was just the same as dropping your shoulders or protecting your knees; it was part of doing the pose “properly.” And I knew that if you held your breath – you couldn’t truly relax into a pose and effectively hold it.

So about a year or so ago, I finally started to understand what a powerful tool the breath can be. I was working with a yoga teacher to improve my energy flow. I was told to use my breath to aid in the flushing of the body. As I focused my breath to different parts of my body, I found how incredibly powerful my breath could be. I began to realize that the breath was a way to make my practice more substantial and more grounded.

Over the last few months – I have focused more on my breath as a primary source of strength and relaxation. Perfecting the poses has become secondary in my mindset. And what I found is that I actually move more easily into the poses and my breath is much quieter and calm.

So as a teacher – I want to remind students to breath through their practice. I would like to incorporate the benefits of breathing into the cuing, as often teachers just say “to breathe” without explanation. Students need to understand that our breath allows us to ease into a pose and ultimately more fully experience our practice.

I would like to use the 3-part breath as part of the warmup in my classes. This breathing technique seems to help students understand how important the breath is since they focus on it.

[CindyHurst]

I really learned to breathe in yoga in the past 10 years. It came to me when I started practicing regularly in a studio. I credit the yoga community, no matter where I practiced, that helped me with my focus on breathing. There are multiple techniques that I’ve used to enhance my own breathing practice – alternate nostril breathing, breath of fire, and three-part breath to name a few.

Breathing practice will be a part of all my classes, in centering and in meditation. I’ll focus on the breath as part of the flow. I’ll continue to study about breathing so that I can pass on the benefits to my students. I’ll encourage my students to practice their breathing, even if only for a few minutes every day.

[dooley]

Doing yoga in my home for several years, I knew you needed to pay attention to your breathing. It wasn’t until I went to a yoga studio in Kent did i realize how important breathing is to practicing yoga. It wasn’t until I started going to other studios and hearing other instructors cue how important breathing was to help guide you through the pose that I started to really see a difference in how correct breathing can help you through your practice.
When the instructed cued us pay attention to how each breath would feel inhaling and exhaling, I believing cuing the breath throughout a class is important to help the students keep their focus on breathing.

I was able to see a difference in how I felt after a few classes were I was paying more attention to my breathing and notice the difference I was feeling during the poses and even the positive energy I felt after the class. I would have to remind myself throughout the practice to turn my focus back to my breath. Always hearing the cues about your breathing throughout the class helped me to stay focused not just on the pose but the breathing as well.
It was difficult at first, but as I began to practice my breathing more did I started to see a major change.

Learning the three-part breath really brought the true concept of how our breath can effect the body. When you have to direct your breath into your abs, rib cage, and chest at different times helps you feel the breath move through your body. You begin to use your senses more on three-part breath. You don’t just feel it the breath as you inhale and exhale but you can taste the breath, you can hear the breath as it moves through the body. All this play a part in helping you realize how the breath impacts the body.

[lisaclick48]

Lisa Click –

I learned after a several months as I realized I was never breathing and focusing on getting thru poses and the mental things that came up. I was seriously not breathing for months into my weekly practice. Finally, I started to focus my breathing and understand the importance of breathing. I realize the importance over time and attending yoga practice. It was a progression and it was like the light bulb went off in my head and my lungs at the same time. Learning how to breath and enjoy the process was a learning experience. Kimberly provided cues and reminders throughout the yoga session. I was always reminded what I was doing and what was my breathing doing!!
I will definitely be reminding my yoga students to focus on breathing and the importance of breathing as it’s the foundation of yoga.

[Beth]

I believe I learned to breath or how powerful breath was to my practice during a meditation course in Michigan two years ago. Yoga for me before this was all about cueing the breath. There was a lot of emphasis on breathing but I didn’t understand how it helped me mentally. Two years ago, I was suffering under a terrible boss, having trouble with a boyfriend who was self-destructive and unstable, and I needed stress relief. I took a meditation course as part of my community college staff benefits. It was held on campus and I came into it with a desire to understand myself and to finally learn self-care properly. I believe it was because I was ready to learn that I absorbed everything she was teaching. We did a great deal of breath work prior to meditation and it was then I realized that separate of movement, my breath was healing and calming. She cued us in several different breathing techniques and sent us home weekly with readings about breath. I began to practice it driving in traffic, at work, at home and I started meditating regularly. When I practiced yoga at home, sometimes I wouldn’t move at all but only breathe, other times I would hold poses longer and feel my breath. During flow classes I began to understand how breath and movement worked together and didn’t have trouble keeping the breath going, I didn’t have to be reminded.

Since then, I’ve attended several trainings on breath work, including a weekend long session from Art of Living on kriya breathing. This is a pranayama that lasts for an hour and there is a home practice that lasts 40 minutes. It is based on the circadian rhythms of our bodies. I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in deepening their breath practice and preparation for meditation!

[heatherfly]

I learned to notice breathing before I learned to actually breathe. The first time I was formally introduced to my breath was through a zen meditation practice about 20 years ago. But that was like: there’s your breath. See it? And I was like: wow. Cool. I see it. But what am I supposed to DO with it or to it or about it? And so just noticing it was a struggle at first. Which truthfully brought some anxiety. So when a couple years later I learned ujayyi breath in an ashtanga practice it was sort of a relief. There was something I could do about it. Force the breath in this way so it works for this practice. Keeps my attention for me, warms up my body from the inside which came in super handy during Massachusetts winters at city bus stops, train stations and while waiting for cabs. But in yoga practice it was really challenging. Still is. In intense classes the ujayyi breath raises my heart rate even more than the movement alone and sometimes I feel like I have to come up for air even though I’m engaged in intensely breathing it.

I learned a gentler but still more engaged relationship with breathing through mindfulness practices and mindfulness based stress reduction techniques. I learned to feel the breath in my whole body. And learned to breathe with my whole body and the sense of presence from this has been a deeply grounding development in my own practice. It’s part of why I want to teach yoga. So I can offer people the opportunity to feel that fully grounded presence. And the practice of integrating attention, breath and movement is just right for what I’d want to offer. So the Goldilocks breath for me is just to link breath with movement which requires attention. Not forcing anything but joining it. And honestly it’s been recently, since taking regular classes at balancing owl, that I’ve really learned to do that and found that sweet spot with yoga at long last.

[Author]

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