How do you breathe during the series?

Gabrielle, keep up the wonderful work please. I started using cobra pose
(as discussed in Back Book) for my back and am seeing initial results!!!

Questions:
1) Can you discuss Bikram related breathing a bit more? what type, when to
inhale, exhale, hold (if at all) for various exercises? I see so many
different explanations for breathing that it can be confusing when to use
the nose versus mouth, shallow versus deep, breath of fire versus other
methods. any clarification to help refine exercises is appreciated.

2) Can you please discuss the use of “core tightening” exercises as part of
the various Bikram poses (stomach, buttocks, legs, anus, etc.)? Also body
and/or finger lock uses in Bikram?

3) For persons with disc injuries, sciatic nerve issues, bone injuries,
muscles, etc. can you please discuss how to balance the use of Bikram yoga
to help with injuries (how much to do, when to stop, etc.)?

4) Not sure if this is applicable, but can you discuss the concept of using
visualization to move energy thru the chakras or micro-cosmic orbit as part
of the various Bikram exercises/poses?

THANKS
Phillip

Hi Phillip,

I am very happy that you are already feeling the benefits of such a simple pose and remedy.

Let’s tackle your first question here. And I will attempt the others in other threads. OK?

So…the breathing

Firstly there should be no holding the breath except for in Pranayama. While you should try to fill each 6 seconds with a full and continuous breath, if you can’t then you will hold the breath until the next part of the movement and cycle.

Other than that breathe through your nose (except for sit-ups and kapalbhati breathing) with an ujayyi breath: a slight constriction at the base of the throat. You can forcibly create more turbulence or movement into and out of the lungs reaching deeper and inflating and emptying more fully. In effect you learn to grow your lungs – literally, physically.

When arms are moving up, inhale, when they are coming down, exhale. Same with body movements. Use your inhales to inflate. Sounds silly at first but a lifting pose where you lift your chest inhale as you lift.

The exceptions here are where you need to find a lot of strength on the lift or the kick: exhale as you kick into floor and standing bow. And although you inhale for single leg lifts in Salabhasana, in the double leg lift you will lift higher on the exhale.

For stretching poses, inhale length, exhale and surrender to the stretch.

Rather than take each pose perhaps you could ask for the poses that you are unsure of. You could even use the pose heading in the forum for that. Or use this thread.

Before I hand this question to everyone out there (and you 😉 ) as far as shallow versus deep, I would say that you try to breathe deeply. Your ability to breathe deeply will change depending on the pose and the way it affects you physically and emotionally. The shallower the breath, the more caught up near the throat it is, (this is often the characteristic of a panic breath) so think of calm, slow and deep and simply do what you can on a case by case, day by day basis. With experience and frequency of practice you will notice your expanding lung volume and poses that were difficult (to breathe in) will evolve with the challenge lying elsewhere.

Hope that helps for the first pass.

Kind regards
Gabrielle 🙂