BEGINNERS BREATH
Over the weekend I found myself in social media trouble........I was accused of shaming someone, someone I did not know. My first thought was to feel utterly awful, to want to go back and retract my words but then I sat with it and pondered why I had felt the need to comment against a post I saw and I let my words stay there.
I am a member of many different online groups, all related to movement, breathing and yoga therapy in different forms. Generally I stay quiet, I watch the conversations that happen there and sometimes I discover some gems of wisdom. Every so often I seek thoughts from others on my work, and always I get super helpful ideas in return. In general, I do find membership to these groups to be very useful.
However over the weekend an article was shared about breathing and it got a whole heap of yoga teachers up in arms, because this article was suggesting that perhaps the endless cueing of the breath was more harmful than helpful. All those who disagreed piled in with what they do and don't do, how yoga without the breath is simply not yoga. And that, is of course, perfectly correct. There were also others commenting, saying that perhaps there is a different way, more on that later.
But one statement stood out to me and I found it upsetting. One teacher wrote "If I do not tell them when to breathe, they hold their breath". My first thought was who is them? I assume of course the people she teaches, but I found the in-personal nature of it to be weird. My next thought was how does she know they are all holding their breath.
So I asked her. I asked her how she knew this, I said I thought it was a big assumption to make, all this breath holding, and I also said I was uncomfortable with the us and them aspect of her words.
Her response back to me was interesting, mostly in how angry it was. She told me she knows people are holding their breath because unless she tells them when to inhale/exhale they are pretty much all turning blue and that when she releases them from the pose, she hears a massive exhale from them all. She also said she would not be shamed for the them/us question.
Now at this point I stepped away. I don't know this person, she does not me. There is no value in having a keyboard fight over breathing, we will clearly not agree and I honestly don't need that in my life, nor does she.
But I can not shake these thoughts.
If the students are almost turning blue, then what is the practice? Is it so intense that they are holding their breath from the intensity of it? Surely the point of yoga is to be able to allow the body to find the expression of a pose without straining? And also at what point, as teachers, where we given the role of being the 'all knowing' person in the room who is able to know exactly what is going on in the bodies of all those who enter the studio? And finally who is the 'them' in the room? Are they not human beings, like ourselves, who have put their trust in another human being to help facilitate them in practice?
There is a lot about breathing that we can dissect here however this conversation brought me full circle back to one thing, your body is designed to breathe. It is a skill it is very good at, it is keeping you alive. However, it is possible that we can develop patterns of breathing that are less than helpful, that create conditions of tension and pain, and the questions I am asking myself right now are "Does the yoga breath in any way contribute to these disordered patterns?"
When I am teaching a group class, how do I know what everyone in the room has got going on? How do I know what levels of stress or discomfort they are dealing with? The answer is I can not possibly know what patterns of breathing everyone in the room has and for me to assume that I do, is nothing short of total arrogance.
Recently I have found myself being drawn to a beginners mind of breathing. I have been going back to basics. I have been learning about the bio-chemistry of breathing. I have been learning about the delicate balancing act of homeostasis that is occurring in our bodies right now. I have been reading and listening to people who have gone before me on this path and I have allowed my eyes to be open to the possibility of something new.
I believe we have in many ways, over complicated things, I believe that we did this out of the need to create a system. A system, a methodology, that we could offer too people as a way to transform. I believe we have been sucked into some very clever marketing tricks that have tried to suggest that someone else knew better about our bodies, about how our brilliant system works.
I believe in having my own agency over my own body, I believe in feeling empowered to get curious about how my body works so that I wish to know more. I believe that everyone has that right, that once we start stripping away all the labels, all the systems of control, we will find ourselves in a place that is more inclusive, more just and more equitable to all beings.
So, maybe my words did shame someone and I am really sorry for that, honestly I am. Perhaps I could have paused before I wrote what I wrote, perhaps I could have just left it without saying anything or maybe found a way to be kinder. But really I am glad that I did write something, because it allowed me to ponder this some more and through that, maybe you will get to ponder it some also.
I am leaving you with this excellent article by Robin Rothenberg, a dedicated yoga therapist and Buteyko practitioner. Her book Restoring Prana is absolutely wonderful and I find her experience of going back to the beginners breath, really empowering.
Let me know what you think
In kindness
Charlotte x
“There is much more to be said about this - and I’ve only just begun what I imagine to be a life long practice in retraining my breathing centers to function normally. It’s a bit disconcerting to think that perhaps my yoga practices have furthered the imbalance in my system and induced a habitual pattern of over-breathing - and that I have passed that mis-information on to my students. I’m currently in the throes of rehab; renouncing my long, slow, deep breaths is akin to an alcoholic giving up booze. Given that we breathe 15,000-20,000 times in a 24 hour period, it requires constant vigilance, remembering to take my medicine all day and all night long without missing a dose. To say it’s the most challenging practice I’ve ever embarked upon is an understatement. I’d also say it’s the most powerful, healing ‘medicine’ I’ve experienced - with immediate positive results.”