Breath 7 Days a week is what's difficult

Most yogis don't understand the difference between a yoga aasana practice and a praanaayaama practice.

Americans often learn about yoga at their local studio. They sign up for classes and usually take 1, 2 or 3 classes a week, for 75-90 minutes long. Gentle yogis go less often than hardcore hot yogis. I have years of Mindbody data on this. The hardcore group, often younger in age, will go 4, 5 and 6 days a week for 90 minutes of hot flow vinyasa, Bikram, or Ashtanga.

You are supposed to take days off from yogaasana to let your body rest. It is part of the practice. Women have "Moon Days," in the Ashtanga practice. You are supposed to not practice Ashtanga on those days. This mindset of taking days off is how "yoga practice" is viewed in America.

Praanaayaama doesn't work that way. Praanaayaama is 7 days a week. It is only 25 minutes long. Even though breath practice is physically easy and not strenuous to do, 7 days a week, without fail is a real burn. It is difficult to do that at first. The initial struggle is in the unwavering consistency of applying yourself in baby steps without interruption. That is a massive challenge at first.

Once you get the habit going, it is easy. You start a new habit after 21 days. At 40 days, you might get "momentum" going where the practice effortlessly carries itself. After 90 days, you start moving into a lifestyle choice that takes you on a remarkable journey. You cannot know about what is going to happen ahead of time. While aasana is obvious, praanaayaama is subtle at first.

Once you are firmly established in an everyday practice, mile markers start showing up (ie blood purifies, capillaries expand, clean blood goes to the brain, nitric oxide turns on and initiates neuroplasticity, development the brain and intellect, cellular respiration becomes magnificently efficient, breath slows down, mediation becomes easy, with laser like focus.) You start living inside each breath all day long.

When I was first introduced to yoga at Kripalu Ashram in the 1980's, the practice was mainly praanaayaama. Aasana was considered not as important. Every morning for 3 years during my early ashram days, I only missed 5 days of 4am praanaayaama because of travel. It was a rock solid lifestyle habit. I loved how powerfully amazing the the breath was each morning. There iss this sense of physical development with spiritual forward movement. It is hard to describe. Over the years, I forgot about my starting place with yoga. I later got lost in decades of yoga postures because I had an athletic gymnastic body.

In 1995, I recorded the first "Kripalu Vinyasa" flow and it was distributed by KYTA, the Kripalu Yoga Teacher Association. In 1996, I went to Mysore and got super ripped with Patthabhi Jois and Sharath. In the Kripalu Main Chapel with a crowd of 125 or so, I did my awesome yogi show, all these cool rad arm balances strung together like pearls. Everyone was suitably impressed, except my roommate Gitananand Grey Ward. He came up afterwards and said, "when are you going to stop fooling around with aasana and get back to your real practice?" He nailed me.

The answer is "about 21 years later."

Three years ago, with my body and life falling apart, I went back to my ashram praanaayama practice. I knew how to do it intellectually, but I was nowhere near the stage of momentum or making it a lifestyle. I had to start easy, from the beginning, taking one little step forward at a time. I started recording these steps. I cried a lot.

This Next Breath 1 started out as 7 days of practice. Students who joined early on, claimed it was nowhere near enough. The course expanded to 40 days of practice, each day the same practice but with a different theme and focus point. We all need variety. We need regularity with some novelty added in to keep practice fresh.

This Next Breath 1 became This Next Breath 2 (Advanced.) TNB2 is similar to Bapjui's (Swami Kripalu's) practice, something the world has not been fully introduced to. Even devotees of Bapuji don't do his breath practice which is weird. They like the devotional part, but not the practice. If you want to know the man, you do his practice. Swami Kripalu taught a path of Surrender to the Breath, don't control the breath. It is a path of listening, responding and over flowing love. It is a practice of Non-Doing while showing up every morning. All the insights will happen quite naturally in their own time.

I am positive the approach will work for you. It has worked for anyone who has sincerely put their focus on it. You must log your time for real, not just in your mind. 25 minutes of this specific breath practice done everyday will change your life in a remarkable way. It is not just any breath practice. You need to know what to focus on, what is important and what is not important. Yes, you will develop your ability to inhale and exhale, but more importantly, your nervous system, brain and internal cellular respiration will change. It has brought me to my knees, in a state of loving wonder, surrennding into life, every breath.


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