Steady practice

You’ve probably heard the saying: yoga is not about touching your toes, but about what you learn on the way down.

Yep, I agree. What I am learning on the way down is that the breath is the bridge in between body and mind.
Connecting the physical with the spiritual, joining muscles and nervous system, uniting movement and intention.

Means: steady breath equals steady practice.

For me as a Yoga teacher my own practice is key. I can just teach what I practice myself what doesn’t mean I have to master it! Remaining humble in the teachers position and learning together with the students is an amazing element to create your classes interactive.

In my classes, the breath is the leading component. The breath shapes the posture, the movement follows the breath, the breath leads the body. If you observe how people breath in a normal day, you will surely see that shallow breathing into the upper chest is often something that happens when a person is stressed. Shoulders go up and forward, the lower ribs compress, breath capacity decreases due to bad posture. Observe yourself simply by thinking of a situation that stresses you out – what happens to your shoulders? The your neck, to your chest, to the flow of your breath? Switching into survival mode when experiencing stress, nowadays work environments often don’t hold enough space for getting out of the ever running hormonal secretion causing chronic stress. High blood pressure, acidic alkaline level, poor digestion, bad sleep, reduced presence, depression, nervous movements. The sympathetic nervous system, fight an flight, is switched on.

In yoga, we work with the parasympathetic nervous system, rest and digest, to balance body and mind. Slow belly breathing is the one technique that slows down the blood pressure, heart rate and metabolism to there is more energy available for other processes in the body.

Slow breathing, coming from the core, massages the inner organs and creates homeostasis in the body. The breath is the one and only access to our nervous system we can consciously control and slow down. Once you learn how to breathe properly, your whole posture changes. Opening up the chest and front body will signal confidence, trust and competence to those you work with. It will transpire love, presence and security to those who seek your opinion. It will change and influence your thought patterns, lift your inner frequency and expand your consciousness to ground you into presence and experience the simple joy of existence.

Talking about an actual science here, breath control in yoga and meditation practices is one of the major health practices to activate healing processes in the body, cure stress and anxiety, help with recovery and pulls you out of endless head spirals – no pills needed, just sit, in stillness, in presence, and breathe.

I will teach you how. Are you ready to breathe?