Here's the way I see it.
Breathing serves as the engine for the body. You have to breathe to live.
People have habitual patterns of breathing which can be helpful or harmful.
Breathing is affected by and affects the emotions. If you're stressed, you breathe shallowly, generally from the chest. If you're deeply relaxed, you breathe deeply, generally from the belly.
Breathing is a strange thing – an unconscious physical process that can be made conscious by an effort of will. You can breathe in almost an infinite number of ways: from the belly, from the chest, from the belly rising into the chest, in through the nose, in through the mouth, out through the nose, out through the mouth, using the left nostril to breathe in or out, using the right nostril to breathe in or out, using both nostrils to breathe in or out, alternating nostrils, etc. You can hold your breath for varying amounts of time before or after inhalation or exhalation, etc.
Changing the pattern of your breath – even for short periods of time – can affect your emotions and health. Different types of exercises can have surprisingly different effects. It’s easy to get some sort of results quickly – even a child knows that hyperventilating or holding your breath can fuck you up – but consciously taking control of your breathing to gain specific physical or mental effects can be complicated, and can take a while.
In classic raja yoga the idea is to start pranayama only once you’ve gained a certain amount of physical health and stability through asana, physical postures. You start pranayama by learning how to sit properly. Then you learn how to prepare your mind. Then you learn and practice some basics about inhalation, exhalation, and retention. And only then do you start practicing basic techniques like ujjayi pranayama and viloma pranayama, each of which has its own purposes and benefits. Even ujjayi pranayama has twelve steps which should be practiced and mastered before you get to the final step (exhale, inhale fully and retain the breath for ten seconds, exhale and hold the breath with a tensed abdomen for five seconds, then inhale again, exhale and take two or three deep in and out breaths, and repeat). Do it right and you're supposed to feel exhilarated and confident. Fuck it up and you'll get headaches, bad temper, and exhaustion.
There's a real question – is all of the classic prep work and practice really bullshit which can be skipped by a motivated student, or someone who wants to dabble in the field, or is it really necessary? From personal experience I can say that simply goofing around with techniques learned from a few books on magic and kundalini seemed to give me serious breathing problems (although I was involved in a variety of other magical practices at the time, and asthma is the typical magician's disease). At the same time, practicing pranayama after years of yoga in a formal yoga class with a highly qualified teacher left me feeling energized but relaxed for days afterwards.
Just my two cents. |
