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

Once you've worked for a while with samavrtti, imagine your belly as an ocean and your chest as the shore. Your breath becomes a wave washing up from the ocean depths of your belly onto the wide shore of your chest and then falling back again. Let the wave of your breath wash back and forth from belly to chest, chest to belly, again and again. Keep your belly soft and deep—resting back towards your spine rather than pushing aggressively outward—and keep your chest wide and bright. Though the chest and belly will move slightly with each inhalation and exhalation, their basic shape should not change.

When you start working consciously with the breath, it naturally increases in volume. Don't suppress that increase, but don't actively encourage it, either. You're not trying to ingest more air, but instead to increase the quality of your breath and your sensitivity to it. Growing up in the West, we have been thoroughly trained to want more instead of making do with what we have; most of us have a reflexive greed built into our breathing, so be cautious.

The Victorious Breath

Once you can practice samavrtti with ease for 10 to 15 minutes, you can move on to the practice of ujjayi pranayama (the "victorious breath"). Ujjayi is simply doing samavrtti with the addition of a slight closure at the root of your throat. Narrowing the throat by half-closing the epiglottis (the piece of cartilage at the top of your voice box) gives your breath a voice. Let that voice become your teacher. Listen to the tone of that voice as you inhale and exhale, and make that tone as even and smooth as you can, without any catches or wavering and without any change in pitch. Listening to the voice of ujjayi pranayama will give you greater sensitivity and control over the nuances of your breath.

At first, you may wonder exactly how to manipulate this epiglottal valve at the root of your throat. Here are two methods which can help you learn this action. First, just sigh, and notice the slight constriction in your throat that occurs. That's the area you need to control when you're practicing ujjayi. A second way is to open your mouth and inhale softly, noticing where the breath touches your throat. For most people, that will be deep down at the base and back of the throat. Again, that's the spot you need to constrict slightly to practice ujjayi. After you've zeroed in on this area, close your mouth and inhale, letting the breath touch your throat there. Once you can inhale in this way, practice exhaling with the same constriction of the epiglottis.

Take a Seat

You need to practice samavrtti and ujjayi pranayama in the lying down position until you've achieved some degree of mastery. You don't have to be flawless, but you should be able to lie down and breathe for 15 minutes while maintaining a soft and even rhythm—without gasping, shortness of breath, or dizziness. When you've gained that much control, you're ready to try seated pranayama.

At this point, your breath may not exactly billow like the breath of God—but still, it's a force to be reckoned with. Remember the three little pigs and the big bad wolf? All the old fairy tales can be read as yoga texts in disguise: If your seated posture is a house of straw, or even a house of sticks, the big bad wolf is going to huff and puff and blow your house right down. Your seated posture has to be a house of bricks.

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