Posts

Showing posts from August, 2019

Reflections on 30-years; Breathe

Image
In reflecting on 30-years of teaching Yoga, I have arrived at three points that I consider essential parts of physical practice - Embody | Align | Breathe In the prior two blog postings, I unpacked my thoughts on Embody and Align, and today I'd like to explore what I mean when I say breathe . Breathing is certainly an essential part of the Modern Postural Yoga (MPY) practice, though not always for the reasons that are mentioned. For example, there is a pernicious myth that deep breathing increases oxygen concentration of the blood. While this claim may sound alluring, it's just not true. The body keeps blood oxygen concentration very tightly bound within certain limits, and all the deep breathing in the world is not going to alter this concentration very much. Even if deep breathing did alter concentrations of blood oxygen, would this be desirable? How many of you consume foods or supplements that are considered anti-oxidants? If you do, you already have a sense of how