Introduction

Some of these exercises are basic. They are usually not hard to do but yield great results. Other exercises are harder but that only means that they have even greater effect.

Master the initial exercises before you go to more advanced ones. In all cases you should recognize that your objective is to benefit from the exercises not to treat them as some kind of demand and that you have failed if you can not do it.

I've said before and I say again: proper breathing is very powerful and that you should never push yourself. The rule is:

ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY.

I have presented these exercises in the generally proper sequence. The actual order of use may vary as you get experience with them. Human beings, being very mixed up animals, have a built-in tendency to demand super-hero status.

To put it bluntly, you are not a super hero; and if you continue to demand that you be one and thus overdo these exercises or jump to advanced work before you are done with the earlier work, well, welcome to chaos. That's what you will get: chaos in your life.

ALWAYS TOO SLOWLY

Breathe

Just try to breathe properly as discussed above. Stay at this level until you (1) do not get any extreme cramping and (2) you can tolerate a full hour of the breathing. It is very natural to want to push on to the breathing exercises presented below. Resist the temptation. It is very surprising how few people can actually breathe properly. Here is a little check list to summarize what I have said so far:

Once you have mastered this basic breathing you are ready to start with the exercises. Don't rush it. Give yourself time to just get the basic breathing. It may sound stupidly easy — and it might be for some readers, some students — but from over 35 years of experience, it is, as the phrase is, easier said than done. Try to just stay with the basic issue of proper breathing until it is natural for you to breathe that way and then you can proceed onto the exercises.

Breathe Belly Only

In this exercise you are breathing only into the belly. The chest is not used. The objective is to make sure you can breathe only with the belly and that the belly breathing is full.

There are two big obstacles to belly breathing: (1) the diaphragm is chronically tense and can not move well, and (2) the abdominal muscles are chronically tense and can not release their tension.

At this point some of you might object that: I exercise daily and one of the major goals is to tighten my abdominal muscle to get that chiseled look. Although this seems as if it might get in the way of full abdominal breathing, it does not. There is a difference between a muscle having tone and a muscle being tonic. In tone a muscle maintains a healthy degree of tension but can relax when it is not in use. When a muscle is tonic the muscle can not relax even when it is not in use.

When you stand up your abdominal muscles serve a postural function; they must have a degree of tension. When you lay down on your back, your abdominal muscles no longer have a postural function and they should be able to relax. In other words: tone is good, chronic tension (tonic) is not.

For many people with very tight abdominal muscles, there is limited ability to let the tension pass when it is not structurally needed. Thus their ability to breathe into the belly is limited by the tension of the abdominal muscles.

The difficult thing to describe is: how big is the abdomen, how does it look when the tension is released during a belly only breath? The only way I can begin to describe that is by reference to a picture (Figure 22). Neither of our models could fully expand his belly, but the picture gives you at least some idea of what an expanded belly looks like.

Figure 22

Figure 23

Notice the difference between the abdominal expansion in Figure 22 and Figure 23. The residual tension in the lower abdomen in Figure 23 is conventionally interpreted as sexual anxiety.

Footnote 17. The reader needs to be aware that all statements in psychology are statistical statements. That is, any interpretation (like the above on sexual anxiety) is not a fact (100% true), it is a statistical statement meaning that there is only a possibility that it is true in any given instance.

I've spent this time on the abdominal muscle, but recall that another problem with belly breathing is tonicity (chronic tension) of the diaphragm. I'll tell you what to feel for; however, this can also take a lot of practice with different body types. Thus it may well be the case that you cannot feel it. If you are unable to judge diaphragm tension, simply treat it as part of the overall belly breathing issue. If you can do a full belly breath it means that your diaphragm is properly mobile even if you can't feel it.

In Figure 24 I show you how you can place two fingers at the base of the ribs to feel for diaphragmatic movement. You can see in the picture how the two fingers should be against the lower rib and angled very slightly upward.

With the fingers properly placed and pointed in the right direction, start breathing into the belly. You should be able to feel the diaphragm move under you fingers. It feels something like a soft ridge moving beneath your fingers.

It is surprising how many people can not breathe with the belly without also involving the chest. Our objective is to free both the abdomen and the chest from tonicity. To accomplish that you must be able to separate the two parts of the breath cycle. You must be able to breathe with the belly only and with the chest only.

Figure 24

In the following picture I show you how to place you hand against your chest and the bed. If your chest is moving you will be able to feel it with your finger

In Figure 25 you can see from the line I have drawn on the photograph that the chest is raising (is pulled up by the accessory muscles). Thus this model, despite instructions by me to breathe only with his belly, is unable to not use his chest in the breath.

Do not short-circuit this exercise. It is important and should be given as much time as needed to be able to not only do it (with much effort and concentration), but to do it easily and naturally. Initially you likely will be concentrating on doing it right. Your goal, however, is not only to do it properly but also naturally. Your final goal is to be able to do this just as naturally as if it were walking.

Figure 25