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Ma Durga
by
Ma Durga
by
Ma Durga
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I remembered an incident that happened in one of my yoga classes in 2002. It was during the deep relaxation phase, I guided a group of students to visualize breathing all the way down to the toes with awareness. After the class, one middle-aged lady, who was a teacher, came to ask me “How can we breathe to the toes when we only breathe through the lungs?”
This incident taught me the importance of giving a deeper understanding about the breath beyond the physiological process to a layman. To the laymen who are wired by logics and intellectual scientific facts, they are only able to accept facts relating to the matter world. In the field of energy, the modern science still has a long way to catch up with spirituality. The good news is they are moving towards the right direction. We can see a growing interest in research about energy and the popularity of alternative therapy such as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Acupuncture, Ayurveda and different forms of energy healing in recent couple of decades. One thing these practices have in common is their fundamental core understanding in seeing the human body as holistic bio-energy not just as matter of different systems.
Do you know that breathing is the only physiological function which is both voluntary and involuntary?
This means that breathing can be controlled consciously by the mind or it can be allowed to function automatically like other physiological processes like digestion under the control of the body’s central nervous system. Breathing is therefore an important bridge between the mind and the body and can influence them both.
Breathing is synonymous with life itself – this is the first thing we do at birth and the last thing we do when we exit this body. Breathing is important to sustain life. Yet, this natural process is often compromised by our environmental conditions, past conditioning or traumatic experiences.
From the Human Developmental Patterns developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, it states that the breathing pattern is the template for all other movement patterns and states of consciousness, any distortion at this level of the human being affects all other physical, physiological and psychological processes. Many modern scientists are now discovering what the yogis have known for thousands of years – i.e. yoga movement and breathing techniques increase our lung capacity and efficiency. After having worked on breathing for more than 10 years, I absolutely concur with this truth. For these reasons, the breathing pattern is the first thing I work on with my students because fundamentally breathing connects them to the most basic life process and therefore with themselves.