This month in our classes we’ve been focusing on the breath. The breath to me is magical. It’s one of the only systems in our body that I can think of that both happens automatically and is under our control. Most of the day we walk around and don’t even pay attention to our breath. But then we come to a practice like yoga, and we are asked to pay deep attention to the rising and falling or to move with the rhythm of the breath. Suddenly the breath becomes the center of everything!

Many moons ago when I was in acting school, we had speech classes designed to help us develop, not only our speech and diction, but our breathing. We’d spend about half of the class lying down, exploring our breath – opening up channels for the breath, developing breath awareness and control. It was then that I started to glimpse the idea of breathing being a three-dimensional experience. Even though I had been singing for a while, no one really talked about the breath as three dimensional. All we talked about was diaphragmatic breathing – or as I was taught early on, belly breathing. And while it’s true that all breathing is diaphragmatic and that the diaphragm moves downward on the inhale and presses down on the abdominal organs, creating that slight swell in the belly, it also fans outward. When I was practicing my “belly breathing”, I think what I might have been doing was pushing my belly out – like my lungs were in my belly.

As I look back now, I’m imagining the “belly-breath” description and image was taught to help us breathe more deeply rather than our typical shallow chest breathing, and to help us allow our shoulders to soften down, rather than hike up. So, in that regard I’m grateful I learned it. In my acting school speech class, however, the exercises we did and the way we approached breathing, allowed me to experience the side-to-side movement of my ribs - it was a very freeing feeling. It also allowed me to feel the breath not just moving downward but also upward – also very freeing and grounding.

It wasn’t until I started practicing yoga more seriously, that I was truly able to experience my breath in my back body. Somehow I had missed that part in all my years of breathing - maybe you have too?

Over the years in my yoga practice, I’ve been searching and exploring how best to breathe – efficiently, comfortably, with ease. I don’t know that I’ve found it yet completely, but continuing to think of the breath in three dimensions helps me to feel it more fully and freely. When I think of the breath as this three-dimensional experience – or like I’m breathing 360 degrees around myself – it feels like I’m breathing with my whole body. Such a delicious sensation!

To access the sensation of breath in the back of your body try settling into a child’s pose.

Add support as you need under your knees or bum, or even behind your knee joints so you are comfortable.

• Start by noticing your breath: When do you breathe in? When do you breathe out?
• Then see if you can invite your breath to fill the width and length of your back. (I read in Judith Lasater’s Yoga Myths that 60% of our lung tissue is in the back body – that’s a lot of lung real estate to explore.)
• Take about 5-10 slow, comfortable breaths – then place your hands on the ground under your shoulders and press your way up to sit.
• Notice how you’re breathing. Notice how you feel!

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