Breathing Lessons

You've heard of pranayama. Maybe you've even tried it in class. But you're probably not practicing it. Here's what you're missing.

By Tony Briggs

When I first encountered pranayama, I thought it was a complete waste of time. I had been taking classes for a couple of years and had just found the instructor I later came to see as my first "real" yoga teacher. One day she announced to the class, "Today we're going to do some pranayama." Huh? I thought. What's that? Prana—what?

We did some simple resting poses and then some very basic breath-awareness exercises, followed by Savasana (Corpse Pose). I wasn't thrilled. I wanted a workout, to get strong and stretched out. That's what I had come for, that's what I'd paid for—and instead, I was lying on the floor just breathing. This wasn't for me! Luckily, my teacher taught pranayama the last week of every month, so it was easy to avoid. I just skipped class that week.

But my real luck lay in my teacher's dogged persistence. Month after month, she kept teaching pranayama, and month after month I kept resisting it—though I did occasionally show up for class. I was just like the guy in Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham. No matter how my teacher presented it, I kept on turning up my nose and saying, "I do not like this pran-a-yam. I do not like it, Sam-I-am." And then one day something inside me suddenly clicked, and I changed my mind. During an agitated and confused time in my life, I glimpsed in pranayama practice the possibility of refuge. As I have slowly gone deeper into the practice over many years, that refuge has gone on opening inside me.

Given my own experience, it's easy for me to empathize with students who are not drawn to pranayama right away. These days, many people get started in yoga when they see a video or some photos in a magazine, or when a friend tells them of the physical fitness benefits. Most new students encounter the outward shapes of the yoga asanas first. For a long time, the inner workings of the asanas can remain unseen, mysterious, and maybe a bit intimidating to the novice yogi. Particularly, the notion of using the breath and the breath's rhythmic internal energy—prana—may seem a little too esoteric to be relevant or useful.

Traditionally, though, the practice of pranayama—releasing and channeling the body's stores of internal pranic energy—has been seen as the core of hatha yoga practice. Pranayama is meant to nurture a high level of bodily health and mental clarity, both of which are crucial steps on the path to self-knowledge and a wholesome, authentic life.

Energy Control

Many people are aware of the theory in modern physics that matter and energy are just different manifestations of the same thing. So one way to look at the body or body-mind is as a cloud of energy—a cloud of energy so concentrated that it's visible. Prana is just another word for that energy. Prana is the energy that moves the universe, or that is the universe.

So pranayama—literally, "control of prana"—isn't just breathing exercises. Through pranayama, you use the breath to affect the constellation of energy that is your body-mind.

But why should you want to move this energy around?

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