When I started teaching Ashtanga in the Lehigh Valley 26 years ago, my main focus was to educate students that had an interest in yoga so one day they actually would take the plunge, come to a class and start feeling better in their own body. We start here today with some of the basic terminology I find helpful to practice Ujjayi with ease. I hope that sharing my experience of learning, practicing and teaching Ujjayi breathing to hundreds (maybe a few thousand) students, is helpful to you on your path.
As soon as you walk into your first Ashtanga class, you will notice the sound of Ujjayi breathing. No other type of yoga class sounds like an Ashtanga shala! But it’s the movement of energy from stagnant places in the body and the mental focus we exert to maintain comfort and joy that keep Ashtangi’s coming back to their mats.
The basics that most instructors will tell you, if you’re lucky, is to breathe through your nose and try to make a sound in the back of your throat. For some, it comes simply and there is no further explanation necessary, for the time being. However, for others, breathing is the most difficult part of the practice. Trying to regulate the breath so the inhale is the same length as the exhale, while trying to make a sound in your throat, AND practice postures at the same time is overwhelming. So we do the easier thing: we put more effort into the postures.
Yet, how can we expect that by exerting more physical effort ujjayi breathing would get easier? It seems to make more sense that by releasing a little physical effort it would allow more mental space to focus on your breath. What if you were to approach your Ashtanga Practice as if you were going to a Gentle Yoga class? As if the most important task is to leave your mat feeling better than when you arrived on it. As if ujjayi breathing was more important than the postures themselves. As if the invisible parts of the practice were more important the visible.
The 3 qualities of Ujjayi breathing we are discussing in this post are Sound, Speed and Support. Be patient with yourself as you work on the sound on both the inhalation and the exhalation. Be open to different techniques from different instructors and even your mat mates. Whether you have grasped the sound or not, count the length of your breaths and see if you can settle on a length that works for you. And lastly, yet most importantly, be aware of a gentle lift from your core. Bandhas keep us stable, grounded and supported while helping us to maintain a sense of freedom in our breath.
I wish you freedom, joy and range of motion in your yoga practice, now, tomorrow and always!
OBJECTIVES
Sound: The sound of the ujjayi breath is a technique of pratyahara, where we learn to control and withdraw the senses, that leads us to experience meditation in motion. It is a subtle sound created at the back of the throat, by having the muscles of the throat ‘stand at attention’. It is not so much of a squeeze or engaging, but more of a gentle isometric contraction in the throat. Calm and focused, so that our audible sense is engaged in attending to the sound.
Speed: As a new student, I was taught that my intention should be to lengthen my breath and maintain a consistent rhythm of inhales and exhales throughout the practice. Since this can be somewhat anxiety-inducing while you are learning the physical postures, here’s my suggestion for new students: Find a speed that you can maintain while sitting. For example: Inhale, 2, 3, 4, 5, Exhale, 2, 3, 4, 5. Then, decrease it by 1 count and start your practice. In this case, inhaling to 4, exhaling to 4. Once this gets easier, increase back to your resting pace breath of 5 in, 5 out.
Support: Yoga is about finding balance between flexibility and strength in many ways. Most evidently in Ashtanga, there are the physical postures which, if done with awareness, provide an even balance of these 2 qualities. Instead of thinking of strengthening one muscle while stretching another, let’s use the word strength to mean bandhas and flexibility to mean breath. When the bandhas are used as the power source for our ujjayi breath, our core becomes stronger and more agile, and our breath becomes free and rhythmic.
SANSKRIT TERMS
Ujjayi- ‘Victorious’; Refers to one that ‘clears the throat and takes control of one's own breath/energetic flow.
Pratyahara- One of the 8 limbs of Ashtanga yoga, meaning to withdraw the senses into the Self.
Dirga- Refers to length of the breath: long and slow
Sukshma- Refers to the way the breath is delivered: subtle, with control/intention
Bandhas- Both energetic and physical engagement of the core muscles; grounding and anchoring as well as lifting and supporting.
