Max

Morning Gabrielle,

Yes, please do direct me to specific pages and photos – I think have every book and video you’ve ever made or done 🙂

Namaste

Max 🙂

Hi Gabrielle,

Thanks. The Bikram script does talk about every muscle being tense in the Balancing Stick, but that’s not my problem pose anyway; my main difficulty is Standing Bow and Standing Head to Knee. One issue is that my arms don’t seem as long as everyone elses! 🙂 (But I find the back exercises relatively easy funnily enough). I suspect standing series will never be great because I have hyperflexible hips and major pronation (not helped by being a bit overweight).

The breath work is actually getting better, but there is no way I can breathe only through my mouth after attempting Standing Bow because it is such a struggle (what with falling out and trying to get back in).

Anyway I find your views really helpful so any advice is so welcome.

Warm wishes

Namaste

Max

Hi Gabrielle

Many thanks, that’s really helpful (though not necessarily easy! :). I think the main learning point for me is that in order to make the ha sound with the mouth closed that comes more from the throat than the nose means that my throat needs to be really relaxed/wide open. I can practice this, but in some ways it seems like different advice from your Pranayama video where you speak about deliberately constricting the airways to slow down the movement of air? Surely it’s more difficult to make a ha sound with constricted passages?

Thanks again.

Namaste

Max

Hi Gabrielle,

Thank you. Yes, the sound is coming from my nose. I thought long and hard about it during Bikram yesterday and think I may have an answer:

When I started Ashtanga and I found an asana like Warrior tough, I was told to “breathe into it” which to my mind meant breathe deeper, louder, harder through my nose. I now realise that in any yoga (Bikram or Ashtanga), I’ve started doing this heavy breathing(!) habitually whether I “need” to or not i.e. whether I’m finding an asana difficult to hold or not.

So yesterday I did a Bikram class and for a change tried just breathing lightly and fairly shallowly all the way through just to see what would happen. And guess what: for the first time in the 3 weeks I’ve been doing Bikram, the class was much easier, I came out not nearly as hot as usual nor feeling dizzy or anything.

I *felt* like I had been cheating, not trying hard enough – so I asked the teacher whether it looked like I’d be slacking a bit compared to before. She said no and that my postures looked pretty much the same as previously e.g. my back bends were just as high etc. The only difference is that I wasn’t breathing as loudly and deeply as before and I didn’t end the class exhausted.

So it seems to me – please correct me if I’m wrong – that I’m able (so far) to achieve the same level of postures but with much less breathing effort. I think I was maybe trying too hard and killing myself?

Namaste

Max