Uneven, Coarse, and Bumpy Breath

Nothing like a round of nadi shodhana pranayama to notice how coarse, rough, bumpy and uneven my breathing is.

I overlook the lake in between rounds and pause, take notice of what just happened, go within.  Even the birds, the chipmunks and the boats merge into a background of light outside my closed eyes.

Yoga platform for the morning, a shuffle board pad

All settled, and after asana practice I am alone, one-on-one, breathing with the earth, all focus in the intake of air, working on smoothing it, taking just as much on count one as in count eleven, noticing where it tends to jump, or where it gets greedy for more.

It does that a lot.

Then comes the part of lowering the chin, locking the throat area gently but surely, stopping the air from coming up, and at the same time engaging mula and udhyana bandha, tightening the perineum, uplifting the abdominal area, creating a pressure cooking point within the navel where the air can be contained in a fire of silence.

That part feels right.

The exhalation gets back to bumpy. The breath wants to rush out, merge with the wind, fly with the leaves.

It is far from perfect.

I take comfort on BKS Iyengar.  He says that when he first started practicing pranayama he would wake up at four o' clock in the morning, have coffee with his wife and then practice, but many times he would just go back to sleep.

James and I had coffee a bit later than that, at 6:30 AM. But hey! At least I am not back to bed.

I' ve been avoiding nadhi shodhana so far and instead trying to get to the ratio of 20-20-20 with just long inhales, retentions, and exhalations before venturing into this more advance practice [As per Maehle book's suggestion].

Nadi shodhana is perhaps the most important of pranayamas, and it consists of breathing with alternate nostrils, including retentions and bandhas in a very ritualistic way.  But for some reason the 20-20-20 ration of inhale-retain-exhale of the prior exercise is eluding me.  I seem to have hit a wall at 12-12-12. The coarse effect.

You can take comfort from the fact that however poor your own pranayama is, it can scarcely be worse than mine was for the first few years says BKS on page 68 of Light on Life...

Iyengar in an open space

That line puts things in perspective.  He suffered from tuberculosis as a youngster.  I should realize how blessed I am to be healthy.

Iyengar also suffered from secrecy.

He had to work hard at uncovering the yoga gems, like pranayama techniques.  Books were not so ready available back then.  His guru refused to teach him.  This is what hardened him, he says, and if he comes accross as taugh, it is because he wants attention to detail on practices that were so hard for him to learn.

Respect.

I feel gratitude to have such an amazing amount of information on pranayama available and to have met wonderful teachers.  Grateful to live in these times, and for those that came before me and paved the way.

Something about the lake invites me to continue on to the alternate nostril breathing anyway, even though the 12-12-12 has not been surpased.  I feel the invitation to work on the bandhas (internal locks), to focus on "om" instead of number counting, to visualize the effulgent sun at the navel while retaining.

That part is easy in nature.  The sun is so present, the energy of the trees, the lake all around.  Gosh I had missed raw nature like this.

Afterwards the centering effect of the pranayama practice is noticeable.  A previous thing that was bothering me has been dealt with in realistic terms and let go.  Focusing for writing has returned, and an attitude of faith is in order for the day.

Breath is now almost nonexistent as I write this and yet enough, peaceful, calm, even.  Seems the practice has prepared it well.

How is your breath today?