Pranic Days

Everyday breathing mechanically moves air, while yogic breathing moves life energy, Prana. When we breathe deeply, calmly and with full attention, including the abdominal cavity, breathing becomes a meditation in which awareness animates the flow of breath, its quality and its feeling within the body. When we breathe this way while moving, Prana travels to the parts of the body emphasised by the movement or yoga pose, the asana. This is yoga’s therapeutic aspect, consisting of three principles: become aware, open or lengthen, and breathe through the area. Through this approach, we can feel and breathe through memories, events and traumas that the body has recorded in the tissues of a particular area, because we know thatthe body keeps the score. This month, we breathe calmly and steadily through every pose and movement.

Mindfulness: We cultivate a quality of breath that builds a safe inner space, a breath that nurtures, has patience and brings genuine compassion. A nurturing breath is our safest tool for meeting challenges and stress. Yoga offers natural support for stress; read more on the blog: A Natural Path to a Life Without Stress.

Yoga therapy for: 

• regulating the nervous system
• stress
• expanding lung capacity
• the chest and shoulders
• anxiety and panic attacks
• depression
• poor concentration
• insomnia
• healing through breath

INTRODUCTORY TALK AND YOGA CLASS ON THE MONTH’S THEME – 75 MIN

PRANA WITHIN ME

What is Prana, and how do we awaken it in the body? What prevents Prana from flowing freely within us? We explain the mechanics of breathing and the logic of the respiratory muscles, which need to remain supple enough to relax and make room for a full breath to move freely. We then briefly address intention. As in everything, and especially in breathing, it is important to be clear about what motivates us. When we strengthen the ego, the desire to achieve and the aversion that says the present is not good, we move away from yoga and peace. Only by being sincerely and calmly with ourselves and allowing the breath to pulse freely do we support the body’s health.

Breath is a bridge between mind and body and our most subtle tool for calibrating the fine energy of both.

This is why breathwork comes in yoga only after considerable asana practice, once the body is soft, the muscles vital and the nervous system ready.

40 MIN

1. FREEDOM FOR THE LUNGS

Continuing to open the month’s theme, this gentle and relaxed class focuses on expanding and freeing the ribcage so that the breath can find a home by itself. We practise movements that mobilise the shoulders and thoracic spine. Several inversions, such as Downward Dog and Prasarita Padottanasana, also emphasise a feeling of freedom in the chest. We lengthen the side body, open forwards in Kapyasana and relax at the end. 
We remember that, when working with breath, we practise entirely without achievement and without awakening craving or aversion.

Returning to the breath is a perfect meditation because we neither desire the breath to arrive nor feel aversion towards the breath that is here.

We therefore open to another dimension of existence: being without ego and without the “I must”, which also means without effort, struggle and expectation.

60 MIN

2. MASSAGING THE DIAPHRAGM

Like every muscle, the diaphragm appreciates massage. We first massage it while lying on the abdomen. By breathing deeply, we lower it into the abdominal cavity and lift it back upwards. We add pulses to this principle for further massage. We then practise Sun Salutations with an element from the traditional Hatha Sun Salutation: Knees-Chest-Chin, which especially opens the chest. The class continues mobilising the ribcage and massaging the respiratory muscles, naturally accompanied throughout by deep, comfortable breathing that awakens inner energy. Towards the end, we return to the abdomen and repeat the diaphragm massage, roll playfully across the floor, as you will see, and  use a strap to open into Dhanurasana. At the end, we relax, enter our peace and return to a spacious awareness that sees contraction and allows it to pass easily. 

40 MIN

3. DIVE IN

Without much talking, today we seek to immerse ourselves in the rhythm of movement and the pulsation of breath. We begin with three-part breathing, filling the lower abdomen, then the diaphragm area and finally the chest. This connects us with the feeling of breath pulsing, expanding and gathering, while establishing a pathway for breath along the torso. We transfer this concentration into other movements and poses and connect directly with ourselves. The class is gentle and comfortable, emphasising length and opening through the side body, with additional massage through twists and several backbends. 

60 MIN

4. BENEATH THE RIBS

Today’s class directly and indirectly opens the space beneath the ribs, bringing attention under them into the diaphragm and the organs located there. Within this month’s intention to prepare the tissues of the ribcage for easier, more comfortable full breathing, it is important to release what becomes stuck beneath the ribs. We therefore lengthen, open and invert the body to give this area an opportunity to move. The class is slightly intense because we practise many backbends that activate the sympathetic nervous system and signal a small degree of danger. Find a measure in which you can still breathe comfortably, telling the body that everything is all right and that we are here because we choose to be. Breath is a bridge of communication with the body. 

MINDFUL SLOW FLOW – 40 MIN

5. WHERE AM I?

We return to ourselves and enter the foundation of our being before we became everything we think about ourselves or everything others think about us. We return to breath as the foundation of being and relax back into ourselves through it. 

We ask the body how I can return to myself before becoming my opinions, assumptions, expectations and ideas, before every concept.

May we allow the body to answer who I am before every aversion and craving. Where am I before every conclusion? Conclusions are final points because we believe what we conclude and create that reality. What can I release from what I have learned that now burdens me?  

40 MIN

6. PEACE BENEATH THE HEART

Today, our intention is to enter a little more deeply into the chest, towards the meeting point of the ribs and thoracic spine and the tissues located there. We spend the first part of the class standing and mobilising the spine in every direction, then move through Sun Salutations with additional Cobra pulses and play with Dolphin Downward Dog variations.

We seek to enter deeply into the ribcage and breathe from within, arranging the body to make this possible.

A strap may be helpful for one pose, and you will certainly need a cushion or blanket. Practise everything overly challenging slowly and rest whenever needed.

60 MIN

7. A PULSE FROM WITHIN

We begin by breathing with equal rhythm and length, from the palm on the abdomen to the palm on the chest. This breathing balances the nervous system and serves as a doorway inward, lowering us into the present moment and the body. We create an excellent foundation for a class that continues with a gentle warm-up on all fours, Sun Salutations and then calm standing asanas held with the help of a strap.

We seek to ground thoroughly and extend in every direction from a stable base, pulsing into breadth.

We repeat the same principle in seated poses and, at the end, through even calmer, deeper breathing in reclining twists. 

40 MIN

8. THE LIGHT OF EASE

We begin standing and use several exercises to mobilise the chest, upper back and shoulders. We then practise Sun Salutations with wave-like variations that follow the rhythm of deep breath. We emphasise lifting and expanding the arms on the inhalation with momentum from the hips, allowing the impulse for breadth to travel like a wave through the whole body. We also pulse this way in asanas. In today’s twists, we seek to open the chest muscle beneath one shoulder and then the other and direct the shoulder blade backwards towards the centre. Several poses make this particularly accessible, so give the body an opportunity to open there.

60 MIN

9. BUDDHA NATURE

This month’s idea is to return to ourselves and our primary nature, to the simplicity of calm breathing. We return to who we were before building concepts, expectations and judgements about ourselves and our surroundings.

The mechanism of breathing connects us with the silence beneath the heart, the place where we gather attention.

We spend considerable time opening the chest and massaging the respiratory muscles to release small and large contractions and stress in this area. We mobilise the shoulders, move rhythmically and take care to let breath guide us. Today’s class summarises everything. After Sun Salutations, we practise several asanas with shoulder mobility exercises, including Gomukhasana Arms in Warrior and then once more on the floor, followed by back exercises on the abdomen, backbends and Dhanurasana.

The state of breath reflects the state of the body, and through breath we regulate and balance it. We therefore breathe as though we want to open and surrender. 

At the end, we relax and remember once more that we need nothing else. Everything is already here. Our sincere being, our Buddha nature, is indestructible, and we can always return to it.