READY for PRANAYAMA?
When you go for Prayanamas, know when to
stop. Breathing is a powerful instrument. It can
benefit us, or it can give us unnecessary
stress. Mind your limits.
Don’t go for the number of repetitions as
prescribed by a book or a teacher. Stop before
you get exhausted. Don’t do breathing
exercises to a number of counts far beyond
your regular breathing patterns. If you’re in a
group class, nobody will notice and punish you
for disobedience. Listen to yourself, and don’t
follow the instructions blindly.
Whether a beginner should incorporate
Pranayamas at all into yoga practice isn’t
straight-forward. Many teachers say that we
should explore breathing exercises slowly. In
our daily life, our breath is abrupt, the
exhalation is shorter than the inhalation, and
we mainly breathe from the chest.
So, the first exercise recommended on our
teacher training was Alternate Breathing, i.e.,
breathing in from the left nostril and breathing
out from the right one, and then breathing in