Inside Yoga 215 (6/11/17)

We might feel life is very complicated some of the time, or perhaps most of the time, and there are times when it’s us who make it complicated when it need not be. While looking for answers we make our route to the solution complex, strained and difficult. The truth is often simpler and easier.

When it comes to yoga there are plenty of opportunities to make it complex and tough, in terms of physical asanas practice as well as seeking to understand the philosophy, but there is one simple thread which holds the practice together and this is our breathing.

At the heart of every posture and thought (especially when thinking of yogic philosophy, the meaning of life and other such daily thoughts!) there is our breathing. We neglect and forget our breath at our peril. Yet we do neglect it. We focus on other areas and forget to be connected to our breathing.

So today’s message is straightforward: while practising remember to keep your focus, awareness and connection with your breathing because your breath is the thread which hold the practice (and life together). No breath, no practice: no  breathing, no life!

Well, it is true that we would not drop down dead if we forget to pay attention to our breathing because our breathing just keeps going, however shallow and erratic it might be, but what is the quality of our breathing during these moments of neglect?

I am speaking specifically about yoga practice here but you can quite easily translate these points to our daily life and our relationship with our breathing. A yoga posture is less effective and beneficial when our breathing is erratic, it can be shallow at times, it can be in a stop-start rhythm where we keep holding breath and making short gasps of breathing, and at other times, it can be stressed in some situations.

The remedy is simple: we breathe deeply. This is our first action in yoga practice, take a deep breath and importantly breathe out long and slow and thereafter, we do our best to maintain this steady, and constant, flow of air through our body, whatever the exercise be it still or dynamic in nature.

Every moment in practice we need to focus on the breathing and this includes starting again with a deep rhythm of breathing when we catch ourselves slipping back into bad habits of shallow and erratic breathing.

It is elemental, but we forget this simple feature of our practice: breathing.

When practising yoga, look at it this way: the starting and end point is the breathing and although the practice will contain a series of multiple breaths we can see it as one continuous breath from start to finish, like a thread in a jumper which weaves in and out of a pattern, but remains the same one thread from start to finish.

It is the thread of our breath which does not change through practice whatever we might be doing with our limbs and body with the asanas practice.

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