A Bit About Breathing

Breathing Room

If you don’t breathe, you die.  It is very simple.  “Hasta la vista, baby,” as Arnie might say.  Fortunately we don’t have to think about breathing 24 hours a day or we would not be able to sleep and that would be very annoying and inconvenient indeed. 

Unfortunately, because we don’t have to think about breathing, many of us don’t.  And that’s a shame because aside from being important, the breath is very interesting and, moreover, awareness of the breath can transform your life.  Really.

Awareness of the Breath

It’s a pretty big call to say awareness of the breath can transform your life some of you might say.  But have you ever really stopped to listen to it?  Feel it?  Have you ever noticed how it changes when you are anxious or when you cry those great big heaving sobs we all do from time to time?  Have you ever noticed the effect of taking a few deliberate long, slow, deep breaths can have on you?  If the answer is no, see if you can remember to take a few of them next time you start to feel overwhelmed by any emotion and see what happens.  And, if you can remember to take such breaths when you are doing difficult or ‘scary’ postures in yoga, you will notice a huge difference.

A part of your yoga practice always includes breath awareness.  Sometimes this is just at the beginning of the class, but, as you become more experienced, you will find that you become aware of the breath as you practice.  As the awareness increases, and as your practice develops, you will come to be able to consciously use the breath to assist you in your practice, and your day-to-day life. 

Breath awareness helps connect you to the present moment, which is why it is often used at the beginning of a class.  It also is the first step in learning to control the breath. 

Breathing Basics

There is a lot of anatomy and physiology about breathing that you can read out there, and I am going to grossly over-simplify it.  I am not an expert and if you want to read more then do a Google search using the key words “Leslie Kaminoff”, “Roger Cole”, or “H. David Coulter” and “breathing” and you will find some excellent reading material by highly qualified yogis.  Here, I just want to outline a few different types of breathing.  To do this, I will start with giving a really simplified version of how we breathe.

First, you have ribs.  Your ribcage holds and protects all sorts of important things, for instance your heart and your lungs.  Your lungs are basically ‘stuck’ to your chest wall (held in place by a vacuum that exists between the outer surface of the lungs and the inner surface of the chest wall). This means if your ribcage expands, your lungs also expand and if your ribcage gets smaller then the lungs will too.   

[Obscure but interesting fact #1: if you were to get stabbed in your chest the vacuum that holds your lungs to the chest wall would be penetrated and the lung would then collapse.  Because your lung collapsed you would not be able to breathe.  Because you have two lungs this would probably not be deadly unless both sides of your ribcage were penetrated although you would definitely need to go to a hospital.  In general, it is a good idea not to get stabbed]. 

Your ribcage can expand because of muscles that you have between the ribs (called intercostals).  These muscles can expand and contract and, as they do, the ribs (and the lungs) move with them.  The movement can be enhanced using other muscles as well.  It is helpful to think of your ribcage as a three-dimensional structure that can expand in all directions.  Importantly, the contents of the ribcage can change shape and volume.

Remembering Yogic Roots: Happy Australia Day!

Remembering Yogic Roots: Happy Australia Day!

January 26 is Australia Day.  I wondered what message I could post on such a day.  More importantly, what picture do I have that can send that message?  So I looked through my (limited) pictures folder and found the perfect one; a picture of my dad in front of a Queensland pub taken by my sister.  My dad, ever thinking of us, dressed down deliberately for the occasion by wearing a singlet with an unbuttoned flannie (that’s flannelette shirt for any non-Aussies).  This is not the type of outfit he would normally wear to the pub (he’d at least do up his shirt) but my sister did not have anything other than sports clothes to go out in that night and he wanted to make sure she felt comfortable.

Now, what does my dad in an unbuttoned flannie standing in front of a Queensland pub got to do with anything? Well, a lot.  My dad does not do yoga but he did instill in me from a very young age the importance of being healthy and treating your body with respect.  Sure, he fed us mars bars for breakfast sometimes, but that was only on a Saturday before we went out to Little Athletics to run around for three hours.  And when everyone else was eating white bread at school, we had brown bread—dad used to say eating white bread was like eating fresh air. 

My dad also gave to me the joy of long-distance running (see my earlier post about the marathon in Hips Don’t Die).  I was never a sprinter and I was never that fast, but I loved to get out there and go for really long runs.  It was while training for the marathon that I realized the connection between those long runs and meditation.  There is a certain point on a long run where tension in mind and body starts to dissolve and you come into a joyful place of flow.  Your breathing is steady and your body connects deeply to the continual rise and fall of the breath.  For me it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get into that place, after which point there is a place of mental clarity where peace and calm enters the mind and there is not a problem in the world that matters at that moment. 

Some people might call this a runner’s high.  I am not so sure.  I never felt high.  I always felt still, peaceful, and calm.  No matter what problem I had going into the run, it became so much more manageable coming out of it.  Nowadays just thinking about a long run even starts to put me in that frame of mind and I find myself connecting to my breath automatically. 

So, there we have it, I managed to squeeze in a birthday message, a picture of my dad in a flannie drinking a beer, and find a way to tie it into my yoga practice. Excellent work if I do say so myself, although not too hard really since there is likely a yogic tale or lesson in nearly all aspects of our life.  Go and explore and see what you can find!

Mettha

Dragonfly Does Handstand!

Even Yoga Teachers Are Still Learning...

She’s got no hands but she does a great handstand!  I wish I could feel so steady in this tricky posture (otherwise known as Adho Mukha Vrksasana—hard to say and hard to do). 

Sometimes people might think that just because I teach yoga I must find all yoga postures easy.  But handstand is one of those postures that I have actually been working on for a good two years now!  I guess you could say I am a bit of a slow learner. 

But that’s the thing about yoga, we are all constantly learning.  And that’s part of what makes it so fascinating.   The more you practice yoga the deeper you penetrate the layers of mind and body.   Every time I step onto my mat I learn something new.  This is even if I am doing the same old postures I have been doing for more than ten years.  What it means my practice is never the same.  It means each posture is never the same. 

In my classes I hope that I can encourage you to take an inquisitive approach to your yoga practice and come onto the mat with the attitude of an explorer; that way your practice will never become dull or stale. 

Thanks to one of the truly great explorers, Karen Conniff, for sending me this photo.   Karen was the first person to ever give me some handstand secrets so it is very fitting that she sent it to me!

Practing Yoga For Yourself, Not For Anybody Else

Practicing Yoga For Yourself, Not For Anybody Else

Teaching is one of those professions where you can receive as much as you give and often learn just as much as you teach. 

This week we said goodbye to one of our long-term yoga students—Jagath.  As with all students who I spend time with each week in class, I learned a lot from him.

As Jagath would be the first to tell you, he came to class with some pretty tight hips.  When your hips are tight a lot of yoga poses can become difficult, especially if you are sitting on the floor. 

But Jagath had a knack for coming up with interesting ways to come into postures so that he could practice yoga in a way that suited his body.   He never gave up and he always found a way to practice, even if it meant he was doing something a little different from everyone else when it came time to some of the floor-sitting postures in particular.

This is the true spirit of yoga.  To find out more about yourself and cultivate a practice that can transform you so as to bring about health, peace, and joy. 

I know a lot of us worry about whether we are ‘good’ at yoga, wonder whether everyone else is better than us, or, conversely, derive more positive feelings when we can see that we are better than someone else. 

But the thing is, none of this matters.  It does not matter if someone looks better in a pose than you do or if you look better in a pose than they do.  It does not matter if you have to take a modified version of a posture when others are doing something different. 

What matters in your practice is how it feels inside. 

We all have different bodies, different abilities, and while a dedicated yoga practice will bring about transformation you are still going to be uniquely you.

A large part of the transformation that has the potential to take place on your yoga mat—if you allow it to—is a psychological transformation.  This transformation happens as you recognize that you have come to practice for yourself, and not for anybody else.  That you are there to practice to the best of your ability, and not to critically compare yourself with anybody else.    

And while it may be hard not to notice that someone else is doing a full backbend and you are not, perhaps instead of lamenting you can also take a moment to try one of the following.  First, could you stop and ask yourself whether your life would really be any better if you could do that pose? Second, could you use this as an opportunity to practice santosha--being OK with who you are, accepting what you are, without feeling the need for anything extra to make you happy?  Third, could you find pleasure in their joy (mudita) rather than begrudging it or finding fault with yourself?

With that, thanks to Jagath for some lessons learned.  Good luck in your future ventures and hope to see you soon—maybe on your path to becoming a yoga teacher yourself! 

To Jagath and everyone else, may your practice be peaceful and joyous!

Happy Birthday Tilak (the doorman in the sarong)

Today is Tilak’s birthday.  Tilak is my husband and is also commonly known as the doorman to yoga students. 

Behind the man in the sarong is a genius, an amazingly generous person, and one of the most honest people I know. 

Thank you sweetheart for so many things.  My yoga classes would be so much more difficult without you. 

We all know Tilak does doorman’s duties, but he also cleans the roof so we can practice yoga, and tidies up the floor space inside the house just in case it rains. 

Tilak does these things, like other things, out of love and does not expect anything in return.  He is about the only man I know who works, cooks, cleans, and washes up just because it needs to get done.  It is because of all of the things that you do that so many people get to experience the joy of yoga. 

Mettha