YOGA'S "COMPLETE BREATH"

Breathing isn't just our automatic response to living.  Breathing is a series of empowering considerations.

The lungs breathing are not a "flat" process, meaning, the lungs are physically more than just a pair of pinkish "bags" filling sideways with oxygen into our rib-cages.  The lungs actually wrap around our interior backs, so to begin, breathing into our bodies is a "full" process, or a barrel-like expansion in 360 degrees.

Breathing is not simply an "outward, inward" process, meaning, the breathing process does not end with consideration of the lungs at all.

I invite you to take a comfortable cross-legged seat with your straight back supported by a wall, or if you prefer, sitting on your knees on the backs of your heels in Thunderbolt Seat or "Vajrasana."  From this comfortable posture, rise up out of your sacral sinking, up through your spine freeing up the range of your torso, lifting, not leaning down on inner organs.

Follow the expansion of the complete breath IN through the nose (see companion post, "Premium Oxygen" to find out why) through these three beats of awareness, separately feeling each:

1.  Lower Lobes:  the diaphragm drops beginning with the in-breath, pressing lower lobe organs such as the stomach outward as our distending belly.  We may connect with this first movement by receiving our distended belly into our own hand, noting the capacity for expansion outward.

2.  The Mid-Section:  the twin fans of our rib-cages sway outward, like the bellows of an accordion, which we may sense in its full expansion, by placing our fingers across each individual rib; but don't be disturbed by your own skeleton...these ribs protect our lungs from harm.

3.  The Upper Pecs:  Feel your chest muscles raise with the fulfillment of oxygen capacity, as if being lifted by beams of energy or attached ropes, "popping-up" toward your chin.

When the full breath has been absorbed to capacity, the outward breath empties in the exact same order that the in-take of breath followed....lower abdomen, mid-sectional range, and upper pecs.  The belly expels inward (diaphragm rising), rib-cage fans down or inward, and the upper pecs drop, as everything empties out.

This is a disciplined, focused action of following this slow, conscious intake of the complete breath.

Let's now consider the complete breath from the flip-side of the coin, on the way OUT...note that this is not a "cleansing breath" as is focused on, in the partner-post to this one, entitled, "Premium Oxygen," where carbon dioxide is expelled rapidly out of from the mouth with a collapsing in the body in order to release tension...but rather, this a slow deliberate harnassing of the outward breath by HEATING the body from the inside, called Ujjayi Breathing, which is less about cleansing the breath, and more about super-harnassing it.

In Ashtanga Yoga's Ujjayi Breathing "Victorious Breath," get a sense of this outward breath first, by releasing breath with an open "HA" sound on the out-breath.  You then understand the feeling of the action before releasing it internally.  After trying the outward sound of this out-breath, try it again but without releasing the audible sound, making that gently pressurizing sound INSIDE THE TRACHEA, "Haaaa..." which will sound to oneself like an inner sigh, and the CO2 can then be felt to heat the body with warm energy from within, even as it is evenly escaping from the nostrils.  This "inner steam" is an energy in itself, and even as it is felt inside the torso, the mind may direct this "warming energy" toward any parts of the body that are feeling stress or strain, in order to release tension, and melt into deeper relaxation with yoga postures or asanas.

One wants to continuously free the breath going inward or outward, because to block it, suppress it, or suspend it unconsciously, leads to lack of focus, lack of memory, lack of physical commitment, anxiety, sleepiness, or other forms of mental and emotional ennui, certainly, a depletion in the flow of prana or Life Energy.

On the next full IN breath, ensure you remember the consideration of the 360 degree inner expansion with these 3 sections of breath:  lower, mid-range, upper.

With a final exploration of a complete breath, now attempt a "rolling wave" letting go of the mechanical separations of those three sections, uniting all in a lower through middle to upper range wave of oxygen intake...feeling full expansion and then contraction in all directions...can you loosen the process up even more?

Finally, see if this awareness may be integrated into the Zen of your own movements with complete expression of the breathing apparatus, as you accomplish the physical actions that take you through your day.  To integrate living with a consciousness of the quality in your moment-to-moment adjustments.

The quality of our awareness, and results of our actions, are interlaced...and will depend on the conscious and careful quality we grant to all tasks.  Our smallest victories, hold within them future seeds, of our greatest victories yet to find breath.