Keep Breathing or Drop Dead
During my high school days, my choral music teacher mentioned that there were people out there who taught breathing. All of us in the class thought he was a little bit weird at the best of times, and promptly dismissed this information. We all figured that we were breathing already, and didn't need the expertise of professionals to help out. After all, none of us were collapsing and gasping for want of breath. Our lungs worked just fine as far as we could tell. Our teacher was always a little bit out in left field, and a lot of what he said was considered nonsense. Despite this, his statement stuck in the back of my mind for some reason.
Little did I realize that over 25 years later I would actually meet one of these experts and become enthralled with breathwork. As a lot of you may know, my pal Sassinak is a pilates teacher. She introduced me to the concepts of coordinating movement with breath when she took me on as her guinea pig during her teacher training. It has been a while since Sassinak has given me a pilates class, but that hasn't stopped me from pursuing it on my own. I found Sass' teachers, and have fallen in with them in a big way. One of the women who taught Sassinak is an eastern European who runs her own studio in the west end of town. Not only does she teach pilates, but she also teaches classes with a focus on breathwork. An eccentric music teacher from my distant past has led me full circle to an eccentric body and breathwork teacher in the present day.
Consider this: since I started pilates three years ago I've had the pleasure of improving my fitness level by a considerable amount. I've also suffered from perhaps one cold in the past three years. My backaches have all but vanished. I have gone from being sidelined one or two days per month with a screwed up back to a minor twinge once in a while that doesn't last for more than a few minutes. As a musician, my ability to sing and play my horn has improved by a noticeable amount. I no longer have to gasp for air at the end of a particularly ornate passage. I would say my vocal range has increased by a fifth at least. To me, these are all tangible and welcome results.
In the last few months I've started going to more of my teacher's breathwork classes, and she has taught me some amazing things. The physical aspects of pilates are all good, but there's a kind of static form that you have to adopt. There are right ways, and wrong ways to do pilates, and that's it. With the classes that she calls "Fluid Body", there are many more possibilities. I've discovered that sound and breath can be used to effect changes that go well beyond the exercises prescribed by Joseph Pilates and his followers. Various humming and other vocal sounds coupled with breathing exercises can help make some radical shifts in your physical and mental state. If you observed it, you would think the participants have lost their marbles.
This work is certainly esoteric, and I suspect you might think I'm a little bit loony to expound on the matter, but I speak from personal experience. You may even think, like our high school music class that your breathing and body are adequate. I have found out that my original skepticism from my high school days is unfounded, and even the wackiest sounding ideas might have a grain of truth to them. It doesn't pay to dismiss any idea out of hand until you've investigated the matter and found out for yourself. By all means, hang onto your skepticism, but make sure you find out the facts for yourself before you write anything off. And, please, keep breathing as long as you can. It's good for you.
Little did I realize that over 25 years later I would actually meet one of these experts and become enthralled with breathwork. As a lot of you may know, my pal Sassinak is a pilates teacher. She introduced me to the concepts of coordinating movement with breath when she took me on as her guinea pig during her teacher training. It has been a while since Sassinak has given me a pilates class, but that hasn't stopped me from pursuing it on my own. I found Sass' teachers, and have fallen in with them in a big way. One of the women who taught Sassinak is an eastern European who runs her own studio in the west end of town. Not only does she teach pilates, but she also teaches classes with a focus on breathwork. An eccentric music teacher from my distant past has led me full circle to an eccentric body and breathwork teacher in the present day.
Consider this: since I started pilates three years ago I've had the pleasure of improving my fitness level by a considerable amount. I've also suffered from perhaps one cold in the past three years. My backaches have all but vanished. I have gone from being sidelined one or two days per month with a screwed up back to a minor twinge once in a while that doesn't last for more than a few minutes. As a musician, my ability to sing and play my horn has improved by a noticeable amount. I no longer have to gasp for air at the end of a particularly ornate passage. I would say my vocal range has increased by a fifth at least. To me, these are all tangible and welcome results.
In the last few months I've started going to more of my teacher's breathwork classes, and she has taught me some amazing things. The physical aspects of pilates are all good, but there's a kind of static form that you have to adopt. There are right ways, and wrong ways to do pilates, and that's it. With the classes that she calls "Fluid Body", there are many more possibilities. I've discovered that sound and breath can be used to effect changes that go well beyond the exercises prescribed by Joseph Pilates and his followers. Various humming and other vocal sounds coupled with breathing exercises can help make some radical shifts in your physical and mental state. If you observed it, you would think the participants have lost their marbles.
This work is certainly esoteric, and I suspect you might think I'm a little bit loony to expound on the matter, but I speak from personal experience. You may even think, like our high school music class that your breathing and body are adequate. I have found out that my original skepticism from my high school days is unfounded, and even the wackiest sounding ideas might have a grain of truth to them. It doesn't pay to dismiss any idea out of hand until you've investigated the matter and found out for yourself. By all means, hang onto your skepticism, but make sure you find out the facts for yourself before you write anything off. And, please, keep breathing as long as you can. It's good for you.
posted by othercat @ 10:59 p.m.
1 Comments:
At 9:17 a.m.,
Handsome Jack said…
Other, I have a splendid CD on breathing, "Mindfulness Meditation" by Philip Starkman. What makes these breathing excercises so wonderful is the toning that takes place behind the instructions. The sound is ethereal, the breathing is diaphragmatic, the peacefulness is total. It has appeal on two levels, breath and music. Next time our paths cross ...
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