The
Wind Through The Instrument
Think of your body as a musical instrument, a wind instrument. Your breath, accordingly, is the wind through the instrument. As such, it is the single most important aspect of yoga technique. Traditionally considered the primary carrier of prana - life force - your breathing originates deep inside you, radiates outward and then inward, providing a gentle and steady rhythm for movement, stretch and release. Sometimes you will breathe softly, other times with vigor, but the breathing itself will always be a central and governing focus. Proper breathing brings the poses to life, inspires every subtle shift and movement in every yoga posture, and can help center your awareness in your conscious experience of the now.
Ujjayi Breathing
The main type of breathing we do in yoga is called ujjayi (ooh-JAI-yee). Ujjayi breathing, known as the "victory breath," is characterized by an audibly hollow, deep, soft sound coming from your throat.
The main idea is to coordinate your movements with your breathing. This brings a graceful and sensuous quality to your practice and turns each yoga session into a fluid and creative meditation. As you become skillful at this, the breath and movement will no longer feel distinct. You will experience them as one action, inseparably entwined. You will instinctively breathe as you move or stretch, and move or stretch as you breathe.
Certain movements are always done on inhale, others on exhale. The type of breath (inhale or exhale) depends on what works most naturally on your body. Each specific movement should start with the initiation of the appropriate breath. Opening movements such as backbends and lifting arms are done on inhale. Folding or closing movements such as forward bends and lowering arms are done on exhale. For example, you raise your arms overhead on inhale, and lower them on exhale. The movement, though, is initiated or inspired by the breath and is surrounded by breath.
This pattern makes sense, for it's what happens naturally. When you expand or open there's more room, so that air naturally enters; and when you fold or close, air is squeezed out. If you run short of breath before a particular movement is completed, stop moving, finish the breathing cycle you are now on (exhale if you have just inhaled, inhale if you have just exhaled), and continue moving with the next appropriate phase of breath. In this way an inhaling movement such as arm raising is always done on inhale, even if it requires some exhales in between. Always move with the breath, and only move when you are breathing. One inhale plus one exhale equals a single breath.
Every yoga posture involves a "push" and a "yield." Pushing is an active force that moves the body further and deeper into the posture, gently exploring areas of tightness. Yielding is a passive force with which you wait and listen to the moment-to-moment feedback from your body; it's a letting go of resistance that allows the active force to be successful without being aggressive. The pushing and yielding elements occur simultaneously, as in a dance. Done properly, therefore, yoga is a matter of pushing and yielding, of "doing" and "not-doing," at the same time.
The breath plays a key role in this simultaneous push-yield activity because of its ability to function both automatically and under conscious control. It's the perfect bridge between push and yield, control and surrender, doing and not-doing, and it represents a unique link between these two forces. Skill in yoga involves orchestrating these two forces with the breath. This means that sometimes you will push with the breath into your tight areas, or challenge your endurance, or deliberately increase your sense of "fire" and energy by consciously breathing with more vigor and intensity. At other times you will ride the breath and stay soft, mellow, and be in a pose with minimal effort. With your breathing you can creatively orchestrate the tone of your practice.
Normally we think of the conscious mind as the controller of movement. But consider what it would be like steering a car, typing, running, walking, hitting a tennis ball, dribbling a basketball, anything, if you had to think consciously about what you were doing. Actually, as a beginner in yoga or anything else, you must begin by thinking, in fact, learning an activity even involves a different part of the brain than is used to perform it once you know it. This part of the brain works more slowly and uses more energy than the other, so during this initial learning phase you'll need to move gently slowly - with heightened awareness. You'll need to think carefully about the pose, the breath, the lines of energy, and you will need to learn all the fundamentals of technique. Only when you have graduated from that halting stage, however, will you attain grace and efficiency. This is because the conscious mind is too slow. There is always a space or gap between what the mind says it wants to be doing and what the body actually does. In this gap between intention and execution, between the "ought" and the "is," there is always a loss of energy.
In yoga this separation comes to an end when you allow the breath to replace the thinking mind as the guiding impulse behind movement and stretch. This involves merging so thoroughly with the breath that you are not thinking about anything else. This moment, this breath, this now, is all-important. You immerse yourself so totally that the usual separation between you and the pose dissolves.
This makes it easier to listen to your body. Instead of pushing your body around with only your muscles or your mind, you learn to be guided from within - only moving when your body says it's ready. You learn to push when that is appropriate, and you learn to wait, hold hack, or retreat when that is appropriate. Appropriateness is something you cannot anticipate in advance. Knowing when to push or when to yield is fundamentally only knowable in the living instant of each new moment. Being sensitive in this way is the result of having merged and "become one" with the pose.
As you merge the pose with the breathing you will feel the breath gently nudging, coaxing, opening, stretching, and relaxing your muscles and various tight areas. These areas are contracted energy, contracted parts of you. Releasing them, therefore, will not only give you more energy, but it will make you more comfortable in your body as well.
Merging the pose with the breath will also increase your sensitivity. You'll feel what's happening with more clarity. You'll notice how holding the breath dulls your feeling-sensitivity, and how letting the breath flow freely and deeply increases it. You'll notice how your breathing actually fans the feeling, increasing and clarifying it, heightening your ability to sense yourself. Learning to feel, and feel deeply, is one of the more important learnings in yoga. Proper breathing will directly enhance your feeling-sensitivity.
The idea is to increase your sensitivity to the inner feeling of your body and let it guide you into the appropriate action for that particular moment. That's the secret - the primary thing to learn. The trick is gently to concentrate your attention on the steady flow of breath and ride it into the feeling-tone of the pose. The feeling-tone of the pose will then talk to you. It will instruct you about what to do, what subtle adjustments to make, whether or not to press deeper into the stretch, whether to breathe with more vigor or more gentleness, and how long to stay in the pose.
In this way you exercise your sensitivity and develop self-trust. Your yoga will become increasingly internal. It will become your own. You will no longer feel as though you are doing someone else's yoga. You will have learned how to learn from yourself, and you'll find this most important trait carrying over into all aspects of your lift. You will then understand that you have truly learned how to do yoga only when you've become your own best teacher which means being guided from within.
However, you will only hear the inner feeling talking to you if you are listening. If your mind is elsewhere while your body is doing the post, you are not actually doing yoga. You are not "in union" with what's happening. You're close, of course. There is a semblance of yoga occurring, and doing it at all is better than not doing it, but the practice here is that of merging and becoming one with what you're doing. You're practicing yoga, yoking or "joining with. " You're learning to merge, to yoke your conscious awareness with your now-experience - and you're practicing in this relatively simple and specific context where there are fewer variables to contend with. You're training yourself to keep your attention immersed in what's happening. Specifically, you're learning to stay with the flow of breath in order to stay with the feeling of the pose. The inner feeling will then guide you and tell you what to do. You will have learned how to do yoga when you've become willing to be guided from within.
In the broader context of what it means to live a yogic life, the idea is to continue this awareness all day long - not just in the poses. The poses, besides being good for you for so many reasons, are simply a spiritual context in which to practice being guided from within. During the day, practice this same kind of listening for inner guidance by paying attention to how you feel and then allow yourself to do and be as you are prompted. There's more to say about this later. For now, suffice it to say that asana and meditation practice make it easier to hear and follow your inner voice during the rest of your life, to let "Thy Will be done" be your basic instinct. They strengthen your ability to meditate constantly, always to be listening inwardly for guidance from Infinite Mind, and they develop the confidence required to trust yourself and go with the flow. When you are willing to be guided by the inner feeling, you will have learned the secret.
The proper use of breath also brings a balance in the way your body opens to the stretch. When the force normally used to push the body into greater opening is balanced by the relaxation that comes from proper breathing, a new kind of energized relaxation emerges. We normally think of relaxation as a letting-go that is flaccid, a diminution or lessening of energy. Proper breathing however, adds a vital and dynamic aspect to relaxation.
In order for yoga to feel right, a proper balance is necessary between push and yield. Too much push has a driven quality that betrays a harshness and severity toward oneself that is probably displayed in other areas of life as well. Your practice will be permeated with an emphasis on energy that is untamed, scattered, and often violent in nature. Injury, as well as an agitated, off-center state of mind is likely to result.
The other extreme occurs when "fire" is lacking, when there is no exploratory thrust, when it is predominantly yield. Yoga performed in this manner is dull and lethargic, all effort, energy, and intensity being avoided. There is a relaxed and sometimes sensuous quality to this, but yoga done in too yielding a fashion never develops the openings or strength that provide the energized relaxation that is so appealing and revitalizing.
Depending on your personality, you may find yourself tending toward one or the other of these extremes. If so, understand that there is an appropriate balance of these forces. If you tend toward being aggressive and overly goal-oriented, try allowing more surrender and yield into your practice. This will not slow down or interfere with your progress. In fact, learning to yield, be patient, and deliberately enter more slowly into the poses will actually increase the depth of your poses. It will help you achieve more easily what you are now attempting through excessive force. Your practice will mature in ways you had not anticipated, revealing an unexpected richness and depth.
If your tendency is to yield and not be assertive, try being more adventuresome, energetic, and exploratory. This can work to your advantage and be very pleasing, without being difficult or stressful. The analogy of an early morning yawn and stretch again comes to mind. If you were to wake up and simply hold your arms out limply to your sides, it just wouldn't feel as satisfying as it does to stretch with enthusiasm It feels better to invest a little energy - to stretch with some intensity. It's not difficult to do this. It's exhilarating, invigorating.
An effective way of bringing a balance here, regardless of which extreme you tend toward, involves using your breathing and the line of energy technique (which I will describe later) to generate energy, but at relatively easy places in the pose. This will satisfy the hunger to push for those who like to push, and respect the tendency to yield for others. It will also teach those who like to push how to yield, and those who like to yield how to push. Done this way, your strength, endurance, and flexibility will all increase at a pace your body can assimilate and retain. You will become stronger, lighter, more relaxed, sensuous, and comfortable in your body than you will by just pushing or by just yielding.
Yoga
that has a proper balance between the active and passive feels wonderful.
It is not overly aggressive or torpid, but a harmonious and complimentary
blend of push and yield. It is at once both vigorous and quiet,
like a perfectly centered top spinning so fast it appears motionless.
Be sure you understand, however, it involves push and yield -
both. Sometimes it is appropriate to push and at those times it feels
best to generate energy and push; other times it will be more appropriate
to yield and it will feel better to surrender, let go, and be passive.
And yet, even in a given moment when you are primarily pushing, there
is much more than this going on. You are also waiting for your body to
let you in. You are not only pushing. And if, at a given particular
moment you are primarily yielding you are also, simultaneously exercising
control to some degree in order mentally to direct the energy flow and
continue staying in the pose. You are not just yielding. It is always
push and yield.
The important idea to keep in mind is to be guided always by the inner feeling. This is one of the primary teachings of yoga. Here in the physical practice, you listen to your body You start easy. You do the groundwork. You listen inwardly to the subtle impulses to action that arise while you are in a posture. You then follow the impulses of the moment - stretching here, stretching there, breathing deeper or softer, making subtle internal adjustments, increasing or decreasing the intensity of the pose, whatever meets the need. The need is to do whatever is necessary to make this moment feel perfect, to do what feels best. You learn to do this. But you also allow yourself to do this. Your feelings, by the way, are a trustworthy guide to action because only what is best can feel best. You can therefore trust yourself to trust yourself. You have your own best interests at heart.
Therefore, by listening to the impulses of the moment and following your own inner guidance in the postures, you are actually exercising your sensitivity and developing self-trust. Self-trust, remember is more than merely trusting yourself. It's that quality of being that arises where you realize you did not create yourself, that you are all expression of the creative God Force, and that there is an underlying spiritual orderliness to all things you are a part of. In trusting yourself, therefore, you are trusting that deeper essence that is the source of you. Trusting yourself then becomes the most intimate way of trusting the universe and the most obvious demonstration of that greater trust.
Proper use of the breath will enhance your ability to feel, to listen inwardly, to be guided from within, and thereby to learn from yourself. It will also task you to sustain a sharp, focused attention for longer periods of time. In combination, these strengthen your mental stamina and help you be wholehearted.
The ujjayi breathing technique in particular is a very effective centering device. As you hold your attention on the sound of the breath, the quality of your participation will improve dramatically. This new quality of undivided attention and full participation will facilitate your personal experience of yoga. A sense of oneness will then guide you and tell you what to do, and you will notice yourself becoming more creative and intuitive, not only in your yoga but in your life.
Interest, Attention, and Enjoyment 
It is difficult to pay attention to something if you are not interested in that thing. But it is also difficult to be interested if you are not paying attention. For example, you may be watching the best film in the world. But if you are thinking of something else and are not paying attention, you will miss the subtle nuances that make the film so good, and you won't appreciate or enjoy it as much as you might. Interest, attention, and enjoyment are obviously interrelated. Of course, if you are not interested in doing yoga at the moment, you should really be doing something else. Or you may he interested but unable to maintain a focused attention for an extended period of time. Ujjayi breathing can create that focus.
Each breath you take can remind you to be here now, to treat this moment as important, and repeatedly to affirm the fact that right now you are exactly where you want to be, doing exactly what you want to be doing. You will probably be amazed at how much energy is suddenly at your disposal the moment you realize this. When you are no longer wishing you were somewhere else, doing something different, you will discover that energy is the given and that energy is abundant. What would you expect but the fullest enthusiasm and response when your body, mind, heart, attention, and interest are all in one place? When your attention is no longer splintered and dissipated through conflict, indecisiveness, or half-heartedness, you will experience an increase in energy and feel more alive.
This is especially interesting because, unless you are an absolute beginner, you'll find your mind tiring long before your body. When your mind begins to tire, only then does your body start getting tired. As your interest begins to flicker and wane, you become less attentive. You start thinking of other things, wishing you were elsewhere. Your energy goes elsewhere. You treat your body and your yoga with less care, less respect; and automatically but not surprisingly, your body - following the dictates of your mind - loses its energy and also gets tired. But as you stay clear within yourself that this is what you want to be doing right now, you will be able to sustain interest and attention for longer periods of time. As your capacity for attention increases, so does your energy, your actual physical energy.
Your mental attitude, therefore, is the real source of energy and enthusiasm, and you will learn this very quickly in yoga. Interest is the key. Be interested in the quality of your participation, in discovering where your interest actually lies. Notice what attracts your attention and what motivates you. And attend to the change of tide - when do you start being less interested, and why? What brings it to life again? Notice how your interest fluctuates, how at some moments you are more interested than at other moments. This is not only the heart of yoga, it is the heart of life.
And understand, if the quality of your participation is half-hearted, fragmented, and conflicted, then that will be your experience, and it will not be as satisfying or fulfilling as it might. It's not that you should be wholehearted and fully attentive. It's that more and more you will want to be that way simply because being wholehearted and attentive to your present moment of conscious experience is where the greatest enjoyment lies. In this way it is possible to make every specific moment of your yoga practice enjoyable and meaningful.
It's worth the small effort required to discipline yourself mentally to be attentative and present with whatever is happening each new moment. The way to stay most interested is by keeping your attention on what's actually happening. Train yourself to stay in the now. Specifically, stay with the breath and stay with the feeling of the post. You will only hear the pose talking to you if you are listening and paying attention. Sometimes you will practice with vigor, sometimes you will practice with softness, and most of the time it will be somewhere in between. Yoga is not mechanical. The key is interest, and the trick is to be attentive in the moment to that which elicits your fullest enthusiasm and response.
The quality of your yoga, and of your life, depends solely on how interested you are in the doing of it. Interest unleashes the energy of passion, and passion expresses itself as quality. Therefore, especially toward the end of a session when both your body and your attention are beginning to tire, deliberately continue breathing with the ujjayi breath. It is not hard to do this, and to do so strengthens your capacity for attention. Strengthening your capacity for attention is the real key to yoga, and your breathing is the key to this capacity. This is more important than bring able to touch your toes, or stand on your head, or turn yourself inside out.
