Namaste

Pranayama Program

Why Pranayama? I already know how to breathe.

The average person uses about 1/3 of their lung capacity. We need to breathe deeper and more efficiently. Yes, we all breathe, but most of us don’t know how to breathe properly and we do it 21,600 times per day! We tend to slouch and hunch our shoulders, our lungs cannot expand in that position. Right now, do just that, slouch and hunch. Try and take a deep inhale. You can’t or at least it will be uncomfortable trying. Now, sit up tall, roll back your shoulders and feel like there is a string at the top of your head lifting you up toward the ceiling. Take a deep breath and feel how the lungs can expand freely and deeply.

Your lungs start all the way up at your collar bones and end down at your lowest rib, that’s 18-24 inches. We tend to breathe into the lungs like they are little sandwich bags instead of organs that are almost 2 feet in length. Oxygen is needed for every single metabolic process in your body from thinking, to digesting, to walking and living in general. ‘Prana’ is our life-force. It is more than oxygen. It is the essence of life. ‘Yama’ means restraint or control. Pranayama are the breathing techniques that manipulate, direct, and increase our life-force.

An example of the importance of proper breathing is learned in the first Pranayama of this series, Deep Yogic Breathing. Deep Yogic Breathing engages all three lobes of the lungs. By breathing toward the belly, the lower lobes of the lungs, it stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. The PNS is the ‘Rest and Relax’ portion of our nervous system. It brings our brain and metabolism into the mode of calmness, low-stress, and high-efficiency. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the area two inches below the navel is called your ‘hara’ or ‘tanden’; the center of your energy. In Yoga/Ayurveda, this is the origin point of 72,000 nadis (energy channels) in your body. This breath will take our usual anxiety provoking upper chest breathing and ground it by bringing it down toward our belly, bringing Prana to those 72,000 nadis.

The second pranayama you will learn is Ujjayi breathing. This is the basic yoga breathing you will eventually perform in each yoga posture of your practice. Ujjayi breathing brings in 20% more oxygen into your body, that’s a significant increase. Your brain consumes a majority of that oxygen, it is so oxygen dependent that if deprived even slightly, our cognition decreases, confusion sets in and clarity of thought is no where to be found. It only takes a few minutes of oxygen deprivation for the brain to ‘die’. Ujjayi breathing will actually help you think more clearly and have more energy. Over the weeks, your lung capacity will start to increase as you continue to practice this Pranayama.

In Ujjayi breathing, keeping the breath in and out through your nose and pulling the breath high up into the nasal passages activates the pituitary gland that sits directly above the nasal passages in the brain. The pituitary is like the switchboard for the major hormones in your body that regulate your digestion, breath rate, and heart rate. You can effect all these systems just by practicing Ujjayi breathing. Constricting the back of the throat to get the Ujjayi sounds makes the breathing muscles and diaphragm work a little bit harder. The lung tissue becomes more elastic, so your every day breathing will be less restricted and more fluid.

• Deep yogic breathing,
• Ujjayi, (Victorious breath)
• Rechaka/Uttara Kumbhaka, (Breath retention)
• Nadi Shodhana, (Alternate nostril breathing)
• Viloma, (“Going Against the Hair” breath)
• Bhastrika, (Bellows breath)
• Kapalabhati, (Skull shining breath)
• Agni Sara, (Digestive kriya- cleansing technique)
• Sitali/Sitkari, (Cooling breath)
• Brahmari, (Bee breathing)
• Utjjayi, (Conch breath)
• Utgeet, (Heavenly Divine Song)
• Chandra Bedhana, (Moon Channel breathing)
• Surya Bedhana, (Sun Channel breathing)

Along with:

• The proper sitting position for your body
• The three basic Bandhas (locks)
• Memorizing two basic chants
• And four focus (dharana) techniques, the predecessor to meditation (dhyana)

Over 7 weeks, these seven classes where we meet once a week (75 minutes each, the first and last class will be about 90 minutes), will teach you not only the techniques of doing these breathing exercises safely; but also their benefits mentally, physically and spiritually, as well as their contraindications (when not to practice them).

The pranayama training will be 45 minutes each week. Each class will begin with the Saha Na Vavatu chant. Chanting is a form of breath control and lung capacity development. After each breathing session, there will be a fifteen minute meditation. Each week will have a different dharana (concentration) technique to help quiet the thought waves of the mind. The Shanti chant will conclude the practice. There will be 10 minutes allotted at the end of each session for Q&A. A 25 page manual will be e-mailed to each student upon registration.

9 full hours of training for only $99 ($14 per class). This series will leave you feeling confident in your Pranayama practice. This is a virtual/on-line class held on ZOOM. It is scheduled every few months (check the listed dates). Headphones can be used except when practicing Brahmari.

TUESDAYS: 6:00pm – 7:15pm

July 8, 15, 22, 29 & August 5, 12, 19.

Next Pranayama Program will start in September.