. yoga

Bhastrika (or 'bellows breath') is a very important and fundamental pranayama practice that can add immense power to anything you are doing, cure neck stiffness and shoulder problems ( if practiced with appropriate intent). It happens naturally when you have an uncontrollable fit of giggles. If you want to invoke its power, either practice this or spend the best part of the day laughing :-)

Kapalabhati (or 'Shining Skull'), should calm the mind, soften the face and free up the hips (by giving the inside of the sacro-lumbar joint support when you release the breath). It goes with 'flying from the heart' because it means you can be properly supported along the front of the spine without having to hold yourself together. It should naturally occur when you cough or sneeze, and when your find something slightly funny.

Fire Breath (I don't know the Sanskrit name) is something I recently discovered as a pranayama in its own right (I used to think it was simply an aspect of Bhastrika). If done with a relaxed pelvic floor and spine it can shake you free of lower back problems, and revive the organs of digestion so we can self-nourish properly.

SitKari is a retention breath practice, and its name is an onomatopoeic description of the sounds you might make whilst practicing it.
(I only have the group recording for this one)

'Holding the breath' is considered almost illegal in most yoga circles, but 'kumbakha' is considered and advanced pranayama. The purpose of retention breath in yoga practice is to learn how the arriving breath can support you in what you are doing. This class takes you though that exploration, and introduces Viloma ('ladder breath')

This was a revisit of the first Kriya (cleansing) breath of this series, delving into some of the nuances and purposes of its practice. And it was progressed by completing the practice with the retention breath that goes with the bhastrika internal 'attitude' - the part that gives you central support for whatever you are doing externally.

'Alternate nostril breath' is often mis-practiced because the emphasis is on making the breath pass through each nostril. It is meant to be a balancing of the left and right channels of the entire body (ida and pingala). Here I offer a deeply relaxing and truly balancing reclining version of the practice, that gives you the true nature of this pranayama, and which ultimately relies on you engaging through the left and right sides of yourself with the world you occupy...

A brief revision of the kriya breaths followed by a seated practice: To explore how employing choices in breathing (pranayamas) can support you in movements towards and arrival in postures.

A difficult class unless you can be clear about what you are doing and why:

1: You are intending to become upright and move (into twists in this example), but through the power of various pranayamas ONLY
2: The only way to make this possible is if you are NOT holding your body weight up with your lower back, or holding your head up with your neck... however , you are looking for balanced uprightness through your pranayama efforts (intense!)
3: The exhale can initiate support from the core (kriya breaths)
4: The inhale MUST be an expression of your intended movement (without losing the support of the exhale efforts) ... This is only achievable with a release of your pelvic floor with the inhale (whilst core is supporting you), AND you express the intended movement from your face/heart/wings in space with the arriving breath.
5: If you manage to organise uprightness during the (retention) breath without the need to hold yourself in space, then the straightforward release of the breath will lead to a relaxed experience of releasing into the posture and expansion.
...... Good luck!

'The great breath practice' - a more natural way of somatically recognising the purpose and meaning of all pranayama practices

An in depth explanation of the physiologically based somatic experience of Chakras, and their relationship to Pranayama. ... together with a reclining practice to tune into and develop the junction between the Throat Chakra (Vishuddi) and Heart (Anahata).