WINTER 2019 | Reader's Digest

WINTER 2019 | Reader's Digest - February

Published: Fri, 03/08/19

Hey ,

Welcome to WINTER 2019 Yoga Session second integration week.

February has been all about the breathing - we've spoken at length about the breath on and off the mat, and we also practiced different breathing techniques.

Yet, questions still remain:

"What is the right way to breathe?"

and

"What does breath have to do with stability?"

To answer the first question: there isn't one right way to breathe.

Rather, we want to restore the flexibility of our breathing system (and if you watched the Full Body Breathing video - even though it is in French - you know that breathing is really a full body affair) so that it can respond resiliently to the demands of your current situation.

This only makes sense: sometimes our bodies need more oxygen (when you are working out hard, for example), and sometimes they need less (like when you are chilling on a couch with a cup of tea...)

Breath and stability are married to each other in this way:

Our respiratory diaphragm and our pelvic floor (the sling of muscles between your two sitting bones, tail bone and pubic bone) have a reciprocal relationship.

~ on the inhale, the breathing diaphragm moves down (creating vaccum to help lungs suck the air in!)

~ this movement of the diaphragm increases the intra-abdominal pressure.

~ the increase in intra-abdominal pressure causes the tummy to move out (unless it is held in place by too tight abdominal muscles), the lumbar spine to move back a bit (unless it is held in place by too tight back muscles or hip flexors), and the pelvic floor to move down (unless it is too tight to allow this movement to happen).

The reverse movement happens on the exhale.

More specifically for core and stability, the pelvic floor moves up with the exhale. The muscles of the pelvic floor and low belly (yes, the ones I keep asking you to find!) work together as a team - that's why we first practice engaging the low belly muscles with the exhale!

Hope this clarifies things a bit, and adds another layer to your understanding of the inner body workings.

Below is February's reader's digest.

Breath as a Physical and Emotional Center:

On the mat, we will expand on breathing practices that we started to employ in January. You already know that smoothing and evening the breathing can lead to a more relaxed state of being. But can we also use the breath to energize ourselves - and to move this heavy late-winter energy up, up, UP and OUT?

FULL BODY BREATH:

As you know, February is the BREATH MONTH at Satori Yoga.

We already started to shift our focus to the energizing part of our breath cycle - the inhale. Below is a great video that can help you visualize both parts of the breathing cycle and full body breathing in a more detail.

Breathing Practices For Stress Management and Nervous System Health:

Here is (fittingly!) the last e-Lesson in February's MIND YOUR BREATH series.

I've put most of what we've talked and practiced in class (and even some of the things we haven't touched on yet) into an e-book:

un-hurt un-stuck un-sore

Julia + SATORI TEAM