Hot Yoga Topics > Conscious Breathing
I am really starting to get the whole lifted chest thing during pranayama...makes all the difference. I was at peace in the hot yoga room today--totally let go after pranayama, and the deep ujjayi breathing came--and stayed. It was uncontrolled, but I was completely conscious of it at the same time--nothing forceful; I felt triumphant and joyous.
Laura
Great idea to discuss breathing! I am aware of how unaware we are of our breathing! I run and have extensively attempted to discuss breathing methods with super fast runners, with the hope they could give me breathing tips (anything- stomach out, in nose vs. mouth) and incredibly those with strong cardio strength seem to have no concept of what they even do- say it just comes naturally. My vote: normal=unconscious breathing
AmyA
It can take practice for deep breathing to be "unconscious competence" (uncontrolled.) Perhaps those strong runners, Amy, are there during running. Laura, your chest-lifting, deep breathing AHA moments put you at conscious incompetence (a great place to be). Maybe yogis who take one breath every few hours as Yogananda describes, are at unconscious competence. The rest of us angry, tense, frustrated or upset folks who hold our already-shallow breath? We use Pranayama to practice (controlled). When your students tell you how hard Pranayama is, congratulate them - they just moved from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Carly asked me what might happen if I replaced "Control" with "Awareness" when describing "normal breathing," and it does seem a gentler, perhaps more appropriate word. Because it's really when I lose awareness of my breath that I find myself holding my breath or struggling to breathe. Which is what I think of as breathing that is "uncontrolled."
Though I do find it helps to "think about" breathing into certain areas of my body in certain poses--into the sidebody, for example, or into the back. I know the breath doesn't really go into my sidebody or back, but nevertheless, it feels as though it is.
Is "thinking about" the same thing as awareness, or is it a pitstop halfway between awareness and control?
Mary-Rush
Mary-Rush: you feel that the breath goes into the sidebody or the back, but then your mind says, of course it doesn't. Which is correct? Breath goes everywhere; you have internal channels that move the breath through your entire body and externally, the pores of your skin take breath in too. So the mind is actually limiting your awareness of breath. Thinking can either be a first step to awareness or an obstacle to it...at some point, you must let the thinking stop and the feeling take over. You have complete control over your experiences...once you are willing to let go.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Ah, the paradoxes!
Mary-Rush
Letting go to gain control...fascinating how the unconscious is more powerful than the conscious. The body is programmed to know what to do. I think of the Disney quote, "let your consciousness your guide". Should it be our subconscious, rather??
Laura
The Disney quote is actually, "Always let your conscience be your guide" (Jiminy Cricket singing to Pinocchio, if I'm not mistaken--Jiminy Cricket was Pinocchio's conscience because he didn't have one!). Which is tricky because my conscience is LOUD, and as full of should nots, do nots, and be nots as anything else--not terribly productive, in yoga class as much as anywhere else.
"Always let your unconscious mind be your guide," may not have the same ring to it, but we should still put it on a t-shirt--or on the back of one, and the front could say "BREATHE."
We would probably antagonize a lot of Freudians--if there are still any left?
Mary-Rush
Very interesting discussion. As a new student to hot yoga, a few months ago, I would say that breath work was different, in that, the setting was different (temp & humidity). Now as a teacher trainee and with much more experience as a student, I find my breath easy, energizing and liberating. And on topic with Carly's question: "catch your breath...energetic 90 minute monologue in a hot room", I find that the video exercises very useful, in that, as the anxieties that come up are felt, experienced and then let go my breath then becomes even, consistent and easy again. Great question.
JaneC
Rhonda- You helped me realize that was my new awareness this Summer- "consious incompetence" of my own breathing, leading me on a quest to explore how those with "unconscious sompetence" do it! Still fascinated but now realizing it is an ongoing, and long process.
AmyA
Mary-Rush - I think Jiminy Cricket was poor little Pinocchio's little green bug of GUILT LOL! Laura, I love your inadvertent take on the new slogan, Let Your Conscious Be Your Guide. And BREATHE is great advice too - it's what Yoko Ono said to John Lennon when they met at her art exhibit and look where that got her!
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Amy - conscious competence comes with practice; doing/thinking/feeling something over and over again creates an actual physical neural pathway in your brain, connecting a stimulus to your habitual reaction. The more you repeat it, the deeper the rut. Your mind always takes the path of least resistance, so the more well-worn that neural pathway, the more likely you'll be traveling down that road unconsciously again and again. But now you can see how EASY it is to change habits - just stay conscious and CHANGE the neural pathway by CHOOSING a different thought when you are facing a familiar stimulus.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Jane - if you practice using your breath to create the feeling you want, such as calmness and composure when you being the Teacher you will find that breath can be a tool, rather than noticing what the breath is doing when you are having certain feelings, which is appropriate when you are the Student. Make sense?
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Well, after a 10-hour drive in major traffic, I can attest that conscious breathing is helpful outside of that yoga classroom, too! Ujayi breathing while driving created that same oceanic feeling, that same sense of transcending the limits of the self, that it does when I'm in class... and the same sense of calm and control.
I know "control" seems like a harsh word, but I mean it in the sense of knowing everything is just the way it's supposed to be. What's a better word for that?
Mary-Rush
Mary- Rush - as you use the word "control" to describe your own power over your own experience, it doesn't feel harsh; it feels like freedom to me!
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Thanks Rhonda, I had to reread your wisdom a few times! I get it in relation to breathing, but I'm left wondering, if the "mind always takes the path of least resistance" why so much thinking?
AmyA
Your subconscious mind takes the path of least resistance; your conscious mind likes to bicker and blame. You can train your conscious thoughts into a path that becomes so well worn that now it's unconscious competence; thats now the path of least resistance. you do this by gently guiding those conscious thoughts to always head in the direction of feel better, feel better, feel better.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Another way to say this Amy is that your feelings create your path least resistance...and most success.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
This is a older thread and looking at it now I'd like to add in anyway.... Love Mary-Rush's Pinnochio reference. I've been told by several teachers to control my breathing during certain poses in standing series. It gets very choky at separate leg forehead to knee in particular. My boobs kind of... em... impede perhaps... But even in life I notice as soon as I open my mouth it's Panic breath and all that is usually associated with my thoughts. If I'm having negative thoughts in class yoga can usually tell by my breathing.
AlexandriaS
My breath is what gives me that life-force-energy I've felt ever since I learned how to breathe--which was of course, recently, in the last year. Being able to go through most of the class breathing at the unconsious competance state makes for a much more powerful practice. Being entirely in the moment and actually feeling the air entering and leaving my lungs makes me feel the most alive.
Laura
What could be simpler than breathing - and yet it remains the most powerful and life-affirming practice of all. It can be done anywhere, anytime, by anyone. Ain't nature generous?
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
Some days Pranayama breathing is harder than others. But I dont think it is ever easy, but it gets easier. Giving it full attention definitely makes for a better class,which would be controlled breathing. Just last week I noticed that Pranayama was over and I did it with almost no awareness. Uncontrolled. That doesnt usually happen, but I consider that uncontrolled breathing is normal breathing.
KimA
Wait Kim - if you noticed Pranayama was over without a struggle, isnt that the definition of easy? What would have made it easier still would be to not say, "I dont think it is ever easy." It all starts and ends with ....you.
Rhonda Uretzky, E-RYT
I love this discussion! Breathing is the secret to happiness. My experience with conscious and unconscious breathing shifts throughout the yoga class. I start out in a controlled manner than notice at times (after some poses or even during some) I am breathing unconsciously and everything seems easy. Easy in terms of being in the moment and flowing from pose to savasana to pose and so on. I also find myself breathing deeply outside of the yoga room and I feel so calm and relaxed.
Lisa O'Rourke
As you continue practicing hot yoga and learn the physical and emotional challenges of teaching - your understanding of "normal breathing" will change dramatically. Like, how to catch your breath while maintaining an energetic 90-minute monologue in a hot room! Let's use this forum to let our breathing challenges talk to each other.
Mary-Rush (in her homework post) says that normal breathing is controlled breathing, while Alex believes it is uncontrolled breathing. Can each of you expand on what you mean by controlled and uncontrolled?