• About
  • Writings
    • Writing
      • YOGA: Writing and Practice
      • Motorcycling from MotorCyclingYogiG
    • Midwest
    • Music
  • Contact
  • Home
  • www.zerowasteplanner.com

Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

Slow Down and Breathe

 

Slow Down and Breathe

Yogis have been attempting to articulate the importance of pranayama for centuries, and the effort is still relevant because when a person starts yoga it doesn’t take long for them to realize its a breath centric practice which changes everything.

The practice of pranayama is an important observance by itself, but is often done in haste, as if a couple minutes at the beginning of class is sufficient warm-up for the real work of asana.

Patanjali wrote, by the right control of breath, we overcome ignorance. Breath work is a hallmark of the yogi’s intelligence, and control of breath is intimately linked to the yogi’s heightened awareness of biological and cosmic forces.

Approaches to Pranayama

It’s important to concentrate on breath or prana as a distinct activity with its own benefits and techniques as well as a guiding anchor for asana. Some yoga practices start with pranayama before asana while others pay attention to activating and sustaining ujaii breath throughout asana and pause occasionally to work on pranayama.

Another option is to end practice with a breathing set. But to fully activate the vital life force, central to building the foundation for yoga and life, attention to breath throughout must be paid.

Pranayama isn’t something to rush through in order to get to asana. One 80 year old man I know got the right idea after his first-ever yoga class at YOGA AND LEATHER: Yoga for Bikers. His replacement knees made it difficult for him to bend, and his large body ached, but he did the pranayama exercises –  practicing inhale and exhale – while observing others do asana. While he couldn’t do much in the poses, he followed with breath. Later, I heard him telling others, “It’s all about the breathing. Its the most important thing.”

Pranayama is the deliberate and conscious linking of breath with movement that sets yoga apart from other sports and disciplines. On occasion, there may be a brief pause or hold during asana, but with inhale, exhale, and kumbhaka (breath retention), nearly anyone can participate fully in a yoga class even if their breath was not linked to their asana.

We come into life through our most violent and important breath – the first one – and we leave by way of breath too, when at the end we exhale one last time.

B.K.S. Iyengar wrote, “There is no asana without breath and no breath without asana.” Desichachar offered, “Yoga is as much a practice involving breath as it is involving the body.”

In Light On Pranayama, Iyengar maintained,  “Its as difficult to explain prana as it is to explain God.”

For its centrality to the traditional masters, pranayama in contemporary practice tends to be overlooked. It isn’t because teachers don’t understand the importance of pranayama – they do – but because the Western standard of a one hour time block that most yoga classes fall into doesn’t lend itself well to exploration of both pranayama and asana with any level of depth.

In America, I see many people come to class from their busy lives, and they are primed to keep going. They are eager to move and tend to resist stationary breath work but there is a change going on. Lately, I’ve seen more willingness to engage breath work by yoga students.

In Light on Pranayama, Iyengar maintaned, “its as dificult to explain prana as it is to explain God.” He then went on to explain:

Prana is the energy permeating the universe at all levels.

Prana is the hidden or potential energy in all beings.

Prana is the prime mover of all activity.

Prana is energy which creates protects and destroys.

Prana is the principle of life, according to the Upanishads.

Prana is the hub of the wheel of life.

Prana is the vital energy of life.

Building Strong Lung Capacity

Our vital lung capacity can improve with practice, and in doing so, the body will be better prepared for asana. Stig Avall Sevrinson, world record freediver with a 20 minute breath hold, writes in Breatheology: the art of conscious breathing, “When our breathing is calm and restrained, the mind relaxes. It is this trinity of heart, brain, and breath that you must bear in mind, since it is the source of your well-being and health.”

Breath is life. If you breathe well,

you will live long on earth.

Proverb

Lung capacity is approximately 3 liters of oxygen for women and 4 liters for men in their 30’s. By the time we live to 80, that capacity is reduced to 1.5 for women and 2.8 for men. But with pranayama practice, and exercises in breath holding, we can learn to expand our vital lung capacity which adds volume to our total capacity.

Severinsen writes, “There is a direct correlation between the vital lung capacity and health, so the better the lungs are utilized, the better you will become – even during an illness.”

Food and oxygen are the primary energy sources for the body, and if we live to 70 years, we will take approximately 600 million breaths in our lifetime. It makes sense to strengthen the core muscle surrounding the spine – the diaphragm – which delivers this precious life source to us. The diaphragm also protects and encompasses the heart chakra in the middle of our chest. We strengthen life-force and activate food for our bodies and minds by pranayama exercises. Severinsen believes anyone can increase their vital lung capacity even as he cites research showing decline with age.

“Using the breath makes it yoga versus gymnastics.”

Tao Porchon-Lynch

A focus on pranayama strengthens the heart and activates the inner spiritual center within our dwelling, the temple in which, “We live and move and have our being,” from the book of Acts compiled in the New Testament.

It’s worth nothing the air element is connected to the heart chakra, and air has always been connected with spirit and spirituality; this is reflected in the Western Judaeo-Christian heritage by the Hebrew ruach, or breath of God within us, and the Greek psuche, as wind, breath, and spirit.

Through a centering breath, yoga empowers and brings seeds to fullness; it admonishes humans to wrestle with self and do the vital inner work which transforms the outer structure.

Transforming from Within

Indian yogis, in their discussion of the koshas, spoke of the anandamaya (illumined interior) changing the outer physical structure. When the yogi pays attention to breath, the vital energy fields of each sheath are activated: pranayama, or energy sheath, manomaya, or mental sheath, and vijnanamaya, or wisdom sheath.

Traditional practices included asana and pranayama as a unified set and both are necessary for yoga. The deeper meaning of two existing together as one is consistent with the Indian worldview of a unified field, and its belief system capable of simultaneously holding two antitheses strongly marked. This starts with a strong notion within Indian philosophy which incorporated both the cosmic and the psychic as one.

“The most important step in the development of Indian philosophy was taken when the Brahman, the cosmic principle, and Atman, the embodied psychic principle in man [sic] were linked as identical. This is expressed by the saying, “That art thou,” (Tat tvam asi); and “I am Brahman,” (Aham brahma asi).”

A well-integrated yoga is an active practice of pranayama, meditation, and asana. Pranayama increases the expansive muscular power and opens up space for diaphragm movement within the rib cage. Meditation holds this increased prana which is then embodied through asana.

One day, after yoga class, an insight arose from a place within the wisdom body (vijnanamaya sheath). The idea came in a sentence: The phenomenology of the wind is a poem; a poem is a temple, and a temple is a breath. Wisdom goes back to an inhale and an exhale, and every breath is only a temporary event between the first and last breath. Each breath is temple, and the way of the wind is its poem.

Learning Kumbaka

Before I started yoga, I hadn’t thought much about breath or breath control. But that changed one day when I vacationed in Hawaii and saw a group of free divers descend to 80 feet and interact with a pod of sleepy-eyed spinner dolphins.

Free diving is the art of going deep without using air tanks. It’s a mental and physical discipline requiring many of the same skills as yoga; but while yoga teaches conscious breathing, free diving trains divers in conscious breath hold. Breath awareness is the foundation for both disciplines, and both improve with training for a calm mind and stress-free movement.

When I saw the Hawaiian divers gracefully bend into a pike position at the surface and effortlessly propel themselves down with long fins and steady full-bodied kick strokes, I thought I was in an interactive art gallery. Nearly three atmospheres below the surface, I watched them roll and twist. Dolphins mimicked their fluid movements, and I was captured.

Later that day, I asked one of the divers if he would teach me how to swim into the deep. I wanted to dive like that; I wanted to interact with dolphins and other marine life below the surface at the place where they were comfortable. He said he would, and we promised to meet again at the same beach in two years.

Two years later I met him and we started on the shore. My teacher led me through breathing exercises, meditation, and mental imagery. He talked about the importance of relaxation, calmness, slowing the heartbeat, and becoming one with the environment. He asked me if I did yoga. At the time, I didn’t, but I was curious and asked him why.

Yoga Helps Swimmers

He said, “Yoga will help you swim. Free diving aims to slow the heart rate, rid the body of tension, master breath control, and stop the mind from overthinking. It brings us to the present moment. The mental preparation and breath work of yoga can prepare the mind and body for intense underwater pressure.”

After starting yoga, I saw the clear parallels my free diving instructor had spoken of. Free diving creates physiological changes in the body, what divers call the mammalian diving reflex (DMR). This constricts blood flow to extremities and concentrates the vital force of life in heart and brain.

One method of stilling the inner chatter of our mind in yoga is by tuning into our breath. Free divers do this by counting as they prepare on the beach before going into the water.  Focusing on our breath is one way to sublimate the endless vritti, or monkey mind.

When we follow our breath we tune into awareness in bodily movement. If the yogi knows how to engage the bandas, or energy locks, then breath is economized and centered in vital organs and at the place of need. Prana is locked, as in heart, lungs, and brain.

By the time I met my free diving instructor at the Pacific Ocean in Hawaii, I had waited two years and was eager to get in the water and start diving. I didn’t want to sit on the shore talking and meditating. Today, I realize the mental preparation for diving is like setting my intention or sanskalpa (solemn vow) for yoga practice. It’s perhaps the most important part. But my eagerness to get in the water and start diving helped me understand students that come to my yoga classes. They feel the same way; they are eager to move, and don’t want to be sitting or standing still for something as simple as breathing.

When yogis and free divers are well prepared and present with all their faculties, their practice can reach heights or depths unforeseen. This is why many yoga retreats and teacher trainings prohibit alcohol or drug use. These substances influence the conscious and unconscious states. But yoga works to bring us fully into the moment with nothing but our true presence and experience in that one moment. Yoga moves us to focus entirely on our mind, body, breath as we are. This is an un-encumbering of the personality. Its a willing vulnerability.

In Hawaii, free divers descended to swim with dolphins but did so in measured steps. Free dive guidelines call for most swimmers to pause briefly every 3 meters in order to equalize pressure in their ears. But as in yoga, these progressive guidelines are flexible and depend on the person.

In the beginning, both yogi and free diver are struck by the difficulty of their pursuit. Beginners in yoga spend a lot of time splashing around mentally, like snorkelers on the surface who haven’t yet learned to trust the buoyancy of their bodies or remain calm and comfortable in water. In Hawaii, I watched swimmers paddling furiously and recalled a teacher from water safety classes saying that the main danger for lifeguards in a swimming rescue is the panic and resistance of a drowning person. “They fight to stay afloat and will cling to the head of a lifesaver,” she said, “sometimes drowning their rescuer.”

In the same way, fighting to do yoga, or resisting a state of ease in meditation and asana is contrary to the spirit of yoga’s emotional, spiritual, and physical rescue.

Slow Down and Breathe

Ideally, yoga asana moves to depth in measured steps. Going into a pose, each yogi inhales and exhales as they inventory their body to detect pressure points. Paying attention to inner cues, they decide whether or not they can progress to a deeper level of resistance or take the asana into the next shape shift. With time, yogis move deeper, but it happens slowly.

Learning how to pace oneself in yoga is the growing edge in our busy culture. I’ve observed people rush into class and treat the progressive asanas as if the class was meant to be an aerobic workout. At the end, they quickly pack up and rush out. I’m not the only one who’s noticed this, but I’m seeing a growing call for “slowga” or slow yoga.

We are beginning to realize that yoga is not like the rest of life and neither is it just a class. Yoga is a life-saving reclassification of the important versus unimportant. Every class teaches us discernment, and this is a transferable skill. And while yoga practice can be physically intense, it is not a competition; rather, yoga is an encounter with self at the most honest level.

The physical, non-physical and metaphysical medicine of yoga was not created in haste, neither is it learned quickly; but in time, the yogi will acquire  life-changing habits turning the inner tide from hasty unconscious breath to slow, conscious breathing.

Yogis do well to remember the lesson of free divers and equalization. Descent in swimming requires skill and efficiency. Underwater, the body is equipped with checks and balances for pacing and handling the increased pressure. In yoga, the stress and tightness in your body are equalization points. The yogi only needs to tune in and listen to what his/her body is saying.

Listen to what your body says, and then as the stress and tightness ease, bend and extend to align mind and spine. The deeper you move, the slower you go. Ideally, move with ease, feel the pose, and find your pressure points. Once there, exhale mindfully and move into your resistance in measured and well-tuned awareness, an awareness that started with pranayama.

Leonard Pitt offered advice for dance and mime. “Let the work take over. Instead of doing, try listening. That’s when the real process of discovery begins,”

Breathe. Honor your experience. Be patient as you reach deeper to find sacred connection with your breath, intimately linked to your movement and awareness. Your yoga is waiting for you. On your mark. Get set. Go slow.

References:

Behanan Kovoor, Yoga: A Scientific Evaluation, Dover Pub., 1937

Leonard Pitt, My Brain on Fire: Paris and Other Obsessions, Soft Skull Press, 2016

Stig Avall Severinson, Breathology: the art of conscious breathing, Idelson-Gnocchi, 2012

 

 

Share this:

Filed Under: Yoga, YOGA: Writing and Practice Tagged With: #ArizonaBikeWeek #MotorcycleRidingandWriting, #arizonayogi, #gregoryormson.com, #motorcyclingyogiG, alignment, amwriting, Apache Junction, Arizona, Asana Journal, gilbertyoga, gregoryormson, healing, I-can't-breathe, JustBreathe, Motorcycling, mottoyoga, MottoYogaWorkshops, o-rings, Ormson, Poetry - literature - writing, spirituality, Superstition Harley Davidson, Teaching, transformation, YogaAndLeather, YogaCoach, yogainspiration, yogainspirationals, yogateacherarizona Leave a Comment

About Greg Ormson

Musician, writer, yoga-loving motorcyclist teaching yoga for bikers (Yoga & Leather) at Superstition Harley Davidson in Arizona.

Free diving in Hawaii, Greg learned the importance of breath management and has translated that into teaching Yoga-Breath, Breath of Life workshops accompanied by his band, Sat Song.

He’s traveled through five countries and most of the US to study world religions and other non-formal spiritual expressions. His doctoral degree at the Chicago Theological Seminary was cultural interpretation through a theological and psychological lens. He focused specifically on the power of touch for healing in ritual environments.
He widely on yoga with nearly 100 columns in 18 publications with a combined followership of over 5 million; his writing often categorized under #MotorcyclingyogiG. He contributes regulary to OM Yoga Magazine (UK).

In 2017 he won the Lyric Narrative Non Fiction Award from Eastern Iowa Review for "Midwest Intimations," and in 2016 won Indiana Review's contest for 13 word stories. His nonfiction has earned finalist mention in New Millennium and The Bellingham Review.

Dr. Ormson is an alumnus of The Chicago Theological Seminary; Chicago, Illinois;
The University of Wisconsin, La Crosse; La Crosse, Wisconsin;
Northern Michigan University, Marquette, Michigan;
Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.

https://gregoryormson.com
Twitter: @GAOrmson
Instagram:#motorcyclingyogiG

His yoga articles have reached millions of viewers through social media and have been translated and shared in Portuguese, Tamil, French, Hebrew, and Spanish.

They can be found searching links the following titles and sources:

98. “Yoga & Leather’ NMU alum leads class for bikers,” The Mining Journal, Marquette, Michigan July 23, 2020
97 "Yoga and Leather: how yoga is helping Harley riders and other bikers to find their Ze3n on and off the highway,” " OM Yoga Magazine July 2020
96 “Clearing Space,” OM Yoga Magazine
95 “Why We Need Yoga Now More than Ever,”
94 "Seniorgrams from the Successful,"
93 “Jesus, Yogi” Asana Journal
92 “Yoga Precis: six steps to a complete yoga practice”
91 “Yoga’s Outliers: Men” OM Yoga Magazine
90 “Yogatecture: Building Your House of Truth,” OM Yoga Magazine
89 “Conducing Heat to Cleanse the Self,” Yogi Times
88 “Silence and Slow Time,” OM Yoga Magazine
87 “Rough Road? Breathe . . .” HOG Magazine
86 “Yoga and the Pure Consciousness of Healing,” Asana Journal
85 “Conducting the Awesome,” OM Yoga Magazine
84 “Yoga: A New Road for Bikers,” Yoga Magazine (UK)
83 “The Way to Sacred Being,” Bad Yogi Mag
82 “Let It Be: When Your Yoga Becomes You,” Bad Yogi Mag
81 “Yoga as Commencement Ritual,” Yoganect
80 “Yoga, Jesus and the Pure Consciousness of Healing,” Bad Yogi Mag
79 “Traveling OM: rediscovering the abiding peace of coming home in a frantic world,” OM Yoga Magazine (UK)
78 “Conducting the Awesome: What I’ve learned from 7 years practicing hot yoga,” elephant journal
77 “Nine Ways you Give Back to Yoga,”
76 “Your Yoga Mat: Dimensions of Healing,”
75 “Yoga and Spiritual Questions,”
74 “Making Contact with Yourself and Your Practice,”
73 “How Many Limbs are Required,”
72 "Por que Precisamos de yoga mais do que nunca.” Why We Need Yoga Now More than Ever. www. boayoga.com.br/por-que-precisamos-de-yoga-agora-mais-do-que-nunca-gregory-ormson
71 “Fixing our Backs, Riding our Bikes: common benefits of yoga have every day application to motorcycling." AZ Rider Motorcycle News
70 “Hatha, Hawaii,”
69 “Armor On, Armor Off: The Psychology of Yin Yoga,” Sivana Spirit
68 “Yoga Script for Health and Joy,” Sivana Spirit
67 “Namaste: Nexus of a New Identity,” Sivana Spirit
66 “Embraced by Joy and Bliss,” Sivana Spirit
65 “The Delight Song of a New Architecture,” Sivana Spirit
64 “Transforming the Emotional Body,” Asana Journal
63 “The Real Power of Savasana,” Sivana Spirit
62 “Intention: Your Golden Egg for Change,” Sivana Spirit
61 “Yoga Tips: 6 Easy Ways to get the Most out of Your Yoga Class,” The Health Orange
60 “Mantra for Me and You,” Sivana Spirit
59 “Slow Down and Breathe,” Asana Journal
58 “Tradition Trumps Trendiness,” Asana Journal
57 “Yoga Teacher Training: Revelations Encountered” HelloYoga
56 “How Yoga Ruins our Lives” elephant journal
55 “Yoga Teacher Training: Encountering Self,” TribeGrow
54 “True Presence,” Asana Journal
53 “A Parable of Unmaking,” Asana Journal
52 “Yogatecture: The Elegant Arc of Change,” Asana Journal
51 “Truth Force on Your Mat,” Asana Journal
50 “What You Give to Yoga,” Yogi Times
49 “Enter the Master, Enter the Child,” Asana Journal
48 “The Honorable Yogi,” Asana Journal
47 “Finding Your Depth,” Asana Journal
46 “Teaching Yoga: It’s Not About You,” TribeGrow
45 “In the Midnight Hour: How Yoga Brought My Soul Back,” HelloYoga
44 “Gifts from the Core,” Asana Journal
43 “Release into Savasana,” Asana Journal
42 “The Bridge Within,” Asana Journal
41 “By a Thread,” Asana Journal
40 “Coaching Up: Yoga for Newbies,” DoYouYoga
39 “Your Beautiful Feet,” Asana Journal
38 “Lessons from Yoga and Freediving,” Asana Journal
37 “Five Tips and One Requirement for Coaching Yoga,” Seattle Yoga News
36 “The Immigrant Asana,” Asana Journal
35 “Making Heroes” Asana Journal
34 “Namaste: Nexus of a New Identity,” Sivana Spirit
33 “Sphinx Pose: To Rise in Righteousness,” Asana Journal
32 “Storage Wars and Yoga’s Emotional Rescue,” Asana Journal
31 “Asana Back to the Innocent Age,” Asana Journal
30 “The Year of the Monkey and Yoga’s Counter-Cultural Mathematic,” elephant journal
29 “The Missing Link,” Asana Journal
28 “Your Portable Home” Yoga International
27 “Yogi, Heal Thyself” Asana Journal
26 “Health and Joy, Why Not Us?”
25 “A New Planting, A New Harvesting,” Do You Yoga
24 “Three Stages of a Yogi’s Transformation,” Do You Yoga
23 “Peace: Just a Pause Away,” Yogi Times
22 “How Yoga Helps Us Release,” elephant journal
21 “Why Unpolished Prayers are Still Good Prayers,” elephant journal
20 “Yoga and the Place of Soul,” elephant journal
19 “Yoga’s Covenant: The Promise of Change,” Yogi Times
18 “What is a Kind Yogi,” The Yoga Blog
17 “Yoga and Social Responsibility,” The Yoga Blog
16 “Who Moved the Yoga Mat,” Yogi Times
15 “Yoga’s Touchy Subject – Touching,” DoYouYoga
14, “A Yoga Parable,” Yogi Times
13 “The Yoga Pose that Healed My Back Injuries,” elephant journal
12 “Becoming Your Own Life-Changing Quote,” The Yoga Blog
11 “Finding Your Mantra,” DoYouYoga
10 “Will You Yoga 30 Years from Now,” The Yoga Blog
9 “Ego, Injury, and Your Yoga,” elephant journal
8 “Silence and Your Practice,” The Yoga Blog
7 “Your Breath, Your Center,” elephant journal
6 “Your Practice, Your Inventory,” The Yoga Blog
5 “Aligning and Refining,” elephant journal
4 “Understanding a Yoga Teacher,” The Yoga Blog
3 “Yoga and the Unconscious Mind,” The Yoga Blog
2 “You’re Not Alone on Your Savasana Cloud,” elephant journal
1 “Changing My Story: 365 Days of Yoga,” The Yoga Blog

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Connect With Me

Subscribe for Updates

Copyright © 2021 Gregory Ormson | Quanta Web Design