October 2012 Newsletter from Srivatsa Ramaswami- Use of Voluntary Breath Control in Asanas

[Srivatsa Ramaswami]

October 2012 Newsletter from Srivatsa Ramaswami—Use of Voluntary
Breath Control in Asanas

I returned to USA from India on Sep 5 and left for Chicago on 7th to
teach at Suddha Weixler's Chicago Yoga Center. I taught a weekend
program on “Yoga for Internal Organs” and a five day 25 hour
certificate program in “Core Vinyasakrama Asana” . Then another
weekend on “Asana, Pranayama, Mantras, and Meditation”. I am now
scheduled to teach in UK sponsored by Steve Brandon's Harmony Yoga for
about ten days starting from October 4, 2012. Hope I will be granted a
safe smooth passage, by the border gods(guards).

For 2013 I have started assembling some programs. I am scheduled to
teach another 200 hr Teacher Training Program in Vinyasa Krama Yoga at
LMU from the Monday after Independence day weekend (July 8th onwards
for 5 weeks).... I am also scheduled to teach for about a week+ at
Ricky Tran's Krama Yoga near Dallas, Texas in April- 10 hr Yoga for
Internal Organs, 25 hour certificate program on Core Vinyasas and
first two chapters of Yoga Sutras for 10 hrs.. I may also be teaching
again at Suddha Weixler's Chicago Yoga Center. If anyone is interested
in arranging some of my programs please write to me at
in...@vinyasakrama.com.

During the early 1980s I gave a(n) 8 part series of asanas following
the vinyasakrama with my students from Kalakshetra. Each program was
about 20 mts aired every week under the youth program. Part of it was
asanas and the other part an interview with me which I have deleted in
these videos as they were in Tamil.. My son Badri, 8 or 9 at that time
had recorded it. During my visit to Chennai in Feb, my friends
Srimathy and Ravi of Ashtanga Yoga Chennai and former teachers at KYM
helped to edit it and get portions of the audio replaced with my
Indglish descriptions. The video quality is poor and the audio blank
in the later parts. It was interesting even for me to see how I was
teaching 30 years back. Have a look (at all the 4 videos) if you have
the time and maybe you would like to forward it to a friend or two.
Here are the links
Vinyasa Krama asanas 1980 I http://youtu.be/vEM_QbH2fdo
VinyasaKrama asanas 1980 II http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKbmT8Ssuho&feature=plcp
VinyasaKrama asanas 1980 III http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjMrVq6HuOw&feature=plcp
VinyasaKrama asanas 1980 IV http://youtu.be/olAhZEBWTr0
For a more complete treatment of Vinyasakrama asanas, maybe you would
like to look at my book “The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga”. Here is
the Amazon link
Find this book on amazon.com
During my stay in LA for the Teacher Training Program at LMU, one day
after the 7 hr class hours I went to my good friend Sarah Mata's home
studio for a short lecture. Sarah made a video of it and sent me the
CD just a few days back, I managed to upload it on my Youtube channel.
The one hour talk “Yoga and the Three Gunas I-V” can be viewed from
the following link. Thank you Sarah.
http://www.youtube.com/user/srivatsaramaswami?feature=mhee
********
USE OF VOLUNTARY BREATH CONTROL IN ASANAS
The very first instruction I received from my Guru in Asana practice
was “Inhale”. Sri Krishnamacharya had started coming to our house in
the mornings to teach my brother. A few days into it, I came to the
room to join my brother and father. All were standing in Tadasana
Samasthiti, and Sri Krishnamacharya with his default head down
position had given the first instruction. “Inhale slowly with a
hissing sound and a rubbing sensation in the throat and raise your
arms.“ he said (in Tamil and a bit of English) and raised his arms
slowly breathing in. The inhalation started when he started the
movement of the arms and the inhalation went all along the movement
continuously until he completed the upward movement, interlocked his
fingers, turned them outward and gave a good stretch to the body. We
followed suit. After a moment stay he instructed “Exhale”. He said
“Exhale and slowly lower the arms.”. He started the exhalation with a
hissing sound and synchronized the slow downward movement of the arms
with the breath. Follow the breath closely he added after a couple of
movements and thus completed the basic instructions regarding
breathing in asana vinyasas. He taught like that for the nearly 3
decades I studied with him and, as far as I know, he did not teach in
any other way to others.
I was overawed by the smoothness,flow and fullness of his breathing.
His chest would expand like a balloon, an expansion I had never seen.
His face tucked against the breast bone would look like getting
smaller against the background of his expansive chest movement
Likewise his exhalation would be complete, the stomach muscles going
deep into the abdominal cavity and the diaphragm into the thoracic
cavity. That was the first time I had ever seen a yogi doing movements
completely synchronizing with the breath and with such unimpeded
fullness of the breath. I was reminded of an episode I used to read
when I was young. My mother had given me a tiny volume in Tamil of
Balaramayana (Ramayana for kids). In it there was reference to the
episode in which Anjaneya would prepare himself to leap over the
Indian Ocean to reach the shores of Lanka in search of Sita, Rama's
wife. To make that giant leap for the sake of Lord Rama, he would go
up a hill and breathe in deeply, expand his chest like an ocean and
control the breath in his chest. I used to imagine Anjaneya standing
on top of a hill with a huge hairy chest ballooning and that image
came to my mind looking at this extraordinary Yogi. (By the way, here
is short video of Anjaneyasana following the vinyasakrama performed by
Marina Boni, a participant of the 200 hr Teacher training Program at
LMU this Summer of 2012 videographed by another participant Josh
Geidel, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtrLY7dxbi8&feature=youtu.be

Whenever I mention about breathing in asanas and vinyasas, I feel that
generally people do not pay much attention to the breathing aspect.
There are a few who would say with tongue in cheek, “we always breathe
when we do asanas, don't we all do that?”. There are others who would
say that their breath is slow and not hurried. Some practice asanas
breathing heavily or bordering on 'breathless' and a few long standing
practitioners appear to develop the “second wind”. Of course a number
of people who practice asanas vigorously leave the breath to take its
own course. A few years back I was teaching a weekend workshop , and
was teaching vinyasakrama. I was giving the participants intermittent
rest pauses as I found many were not able to control the breath or
were not paying attention to the breath perhaps as they were not used
to this. But one of them, sweating and breathing rather heavily,
objected to taking frequent rests saying that she had already warmed
up and does not want the system to cool down. She would rather be on
her feet doing a few suryanamaskaras than rest while others were
savasana getting their breath back . But the point I want to make here
is that the breath in asana practice I learnt from my Guru involved
complete control of the breath throughout the practice.., The breath
always was following the movement, there being a perfect synch between
movement and the breath. Breath under involuntary control or autonomic
control between the sympathetic and parasympathetic is known as
'swaabhaavika prayatna” or natural breathing. In this the body, or
more particularly the chitt's normal vritti (samaanya or
saamaanyakarana vritti) adjusts the breath rate depending on the needs
of the body. According to some commentaries on Taittiriya Upanishad
explaining the Prana maya kosa, it is said that the main forces prana
and apana , believed to be associated with puraka and racaka, are
controlled by udana. But in vinyasakrama as taught by Sri
Krishnamacharya the breath is brought under voluntary control and kept
under this control throughout the asana practice. One may say that
the Yogi maintains a good control over udaana. So for about half an
hour to one hour of asana practice and then during Pranayama the
breath remains completely under yogabhyasi's control. The more the
breath is brought under voluntary control, the Yogi it is said, can
bring the chitta under more voluntary control. Of all the involuntary
functions, breathing lends itself to dual control. The Yogis take this
route to slowly bring the mind and the heart too under control. When
cortical higher brain control is achieved over one basic function
(here the breathing), it is possible to achieve control over other
basic functions like the heart .Thus a Yogi who uses voluntarily
controlled breathing in asana practice, and follows it up with a good
pranayama practice, has a much better preparation for meditation than
someone who practices asanas with involuntary breathing and no
pranayama.

There are other important advantages of use of breath in asanas
performed with variety of vinyasas. In vinyasakrama one can do about
5/6 vinyasa movements per minute and in a 30 minute stint one can do
about 150 movements. Doing each vinyasa twice one can probably do
about 70 to 75 vinyasas, much less if one has to take frequent breaks
to recover the breath. There are many experienced practitioners who
can do vinyasa practice for about half hour without having the need to
take rest breaks in savasana due to shortness of breath resulting in
the inability to maintain an acceptable slow rate of breath of about
minimum 5 secs each for inhalation and exhalation. By carefully
choosing appropriate vinyasas for one's practice, it would be possible
to reach almost every 'nook and cranny' (nook and corner) of the body.
The slow movement and stretch/contraction help to squeeze out used
blood into the venous system enhancing the muscle pump effect of the
various muscles and tissues. Simultaneously the deep breathing used
helps to accentuate the respiratory pump effect and suck in more
venous blood to the heart. Thus even as one practices asanas, both the
vinyasas and synchronized breathing help to improve the rakta sanchara
considerably reducing thereby the strain on the heart and
supplementing its work.
And Sri Krishnamacharya used breath very judiciously, altering the
kriya between brahman and langhana kriyas and interspersed with
occasional kumbhakas after rechaka (exhalation) or puraka
(inhalation). Generally forward bends, twists, side bends, back
rounding, knee bends etc. will be done on exhalation or langhana kriya
as it facilitates contracting the abdomen and doing these movements
more easily. Back bends, expansive movements like raising/stretching
the arms or the lower extremities, raising the head and looking up
will be done on synchronized slow inhalation or brahmana kriya.
Brahmana kriya on back bends and extensions also helps to increase
the inter-vertebral space slightly of the thoracic spine and is very
beneficial to the spinal cord which contains an enormous nerve bundle.
But there are exceptions according to my Guru. People with elevated
blood pressure or those who are obese, tense, or generally older would
be encouraged to do these movements using langhana kriya. Several
years back, in the early 80s, I wrote a series of articles in an
Indian magazine called Indian Review. In one article. I think on
salabasana, I mentioned that the back bend in that asana should be
done on exhalation as I used to prefer that. When the article was read
to my guru, he asked me to change it to brahmana kriya as that was the
correct breathing for that movement and what I was doing was a
permissible exception. He was very clear about the use of controlled
breath in asana practice. He also modified the breathing to suit
individual requirements when people came to him for therapeutic help.
Breathing in asana movements was an important tool he employed while
treating patients.

Patanjali in his Yogasutra does not claim that his Yoga Sutra work was
his brainchild but was based on tradition and as per the Vedas
(anusasana). Likewise Sri T Krishnamacharya would mention that the
unique use of mindful breathing he advocated in asana practice was not
his innovation but was based on traditional and authoritative texts
like Vriddha satapata, Yoga Sutras. Further texts that support this
approach would be Navya Nyaya and also Vachaspati Misra's tatva
vaicaradi, Yogasutra commentary. I have written about it earlier but
repetitions are helpful.
In the yogasutra, the phrase of two words, prayatna saithilya (YS II )
means a lot. Prayatna is a word used to indicate effort, but the old
texts like (navya) nyaya explain effort as beings of three types,
pravritti, nivritti and jivana prayatna. Pravritti and nivritti are
activities that one does to get, respectively, what one wants or to
get rid of what one does not want or wants to avoid . Patanjali uses
the term chitta vritti and he groups them fivefold. But cittavritti
can also be classified as above. But in addition to the chitta vrittis
mentioned above (fivefold or twofold), the chitta incessantly is
engaged in another vritti which the samkhyas call as samanya vritti or
samanya karana vritti, which is the lifelong effort of maintaining
life. Hence the pranic activity is called samanya vritii and in nyaya
they call it jivana prayatna or effort of life. So in the above
sutras, the word prayatna does not refer to pravritti or nivritti, nor
the normal bodily movement one does in asana practice, but samanya
vritti or jivana prayatna or simply put 'breathing'. Vachaspati Misra
in his commentary on Yoga Sutra, tatva vaicaradi corroborates this
interpretation of prayatna as pranic activity. He says ”samsiddhika hi
prayatnah sarira dharakah”. Here he says that samsiddhika or the
innate prayatna or effort (of the yoga practitioner) is sarira
dharakah or that of sustaining the body. What innate effort sustains
the body? It is the breath. The root of the word dharaka, 'dhru' is
used to refer to the prana's function in an important major upanishad
called Prasnopanishad. In it there is an interesting episode. Once all
the organs of the body, eyes, ears etc. started arguing which among
them was the greatest. The disagreement reached a crescendo when the
innocuous and incessantly working prana stepped in to say that it, the
prana, dividing itself into five different forces, holds up and
sustains the body and it was the greatest. It uses the term
'dharayishyami (I sustain)' the same root (dhru to sustain or support)
used by Vachaspatimishra in the YS commentary, sarira-dharaka. The
sense organs thought it was incredulous and said so to Prana. Then
prana to prove a point collected its forces and started leaving the
body. Suddenly all the senses started losing their bearings and
realized how dependent they were on the main prana. They all fell at
the feet of Prana and beseeched it not to leave the body. Hence
according to my Guru the term prayatna mentioned in the sutra is not
the ordinary physical effort associated with the movements of the
limbs when one does asanas but the breath itself.

Having explained that prayatna in this context refers to Jivana
prayatna or that of the sariradharaka or prana/breath, Vachaspati
Misra proceeds to explain another important element of Patanjali's
teaching viz., saithilya, which means to make it smooth. Here the
instruction is that the breathing should be smooth which can only be
achieved by controlling the breath. There are two types of breathing
as we have two centers that can control breathing. One is under the
autonomic nervous system with only very limited voluntary override, in
which the sympathetic is involved the inhalation and the
parasympathetic in the exhalation through the respective breathing
centers. But breathing can also be brought under the cerebral cortex
when we willfully take over the control of the breathing process . So
here we take control of breathing as we do the various movements or
vinyasas. The main message is that the breathing if involuntary will
adjust to the metabolic requirements-- slow while resting, hurried
under physical stress like weight lifting or doing Yoga as if like a
workout. But in asana practice as per this sutra it would be under
voluntary control, doing the movements with the breath under control
and voluntarily.

Vachapati Misra explains this beautifully. He says that the natural/
involuntary (swa-bhavika) prayatna or breathing will not be helpful in
attaining the posture, actually it would be a hindrance.
“upadeshta vyaasanasya ayam asaadhakah, virodhi cha swaabhavika
prayatnah)
Hence one should voluntarily control it and make it smoother
(saithilya) which is what Sri Krishnamacharya did. Here is the quote
from Vacaspati Misra
“tasmaat, upadhishta niyama asanam abhyasataya svaabhaavika prayatna
saithilyaatma asteyah, naanyata upadishta aasanam sidhyati iti|
swaabhaavika prayatna saithilyasya aasana siddhi hetuh|” Therefore
when the intended asana is attempted, the breath should be made
smooth/controlled, and in no other way the intended asana can be
perfected. Thus the cause of asana siddhi is indeed making the
natural breath smooth (by controlling it).

To reinforce this concept, Patanjali adds that the mind should be
focused on the breath indicating that the breathing should be mindful
or in the voluntary mode and not allow the auto mode. Here he uses the
word ananta to indicate the breath. The word ananta can be split as
most people do as an+anta. The prefix 'an' meaning 'not' rhymes with
the English un used as 'not' in English. Anta means end or limit so
ananta would mean endless or limitless and hence ananta is usually
translated as infinity and many commentators recommend focusing the
mind on infinity. However the word ananta, here more appropriately
should be broken as a word derived from the root 'ana' to breathe
(ana, svase) like prana (pra+and, vyana vi+ana etc). The word ending
'ta' would indicate containing so ananta is containing or controlling
the breath. “prayatna saithilya ananta samapattibhyam” is the sutra
about how to use the breath in asana practice. The instruction loud
and clear is that one should bring the breath under voluntary control
while doing asanas and not allow it to be under autonomic control. And
Patanjali is the incarnation of Nagaraja or the cobra king also known
as ananta. And cobras are said to live on breath, of course a
mythological belief. So some say one could have the image of ananta or
Patanjali in mind while practicing asanasa-- a symbolic way of saying
'focus on the breath'

Whenever one says that one practices Hatayoga, I have an urge to ask
if one does any yoga breath work like pranayama, because hata yoga is
pranayama as per Brahmananda, the Hatayoga pradeepika commentator. So
if one would have controlled breathing in asana practice as discussed
above and also does pranayama, it would mean that the yogabhyasi would
be in total control of her/his breathing during the entire period of
hatayoga practice, and after all hatayoga is activity under complete
control of the breath as can be seen from the yogasutras and the
definition of Hatayoga of Brahmananda. I . When the breath would get
out of control sometimes Sri Krishnamacharya would ask the student to
lie down in savasana and regain the breath before continuing with the
asana practice. Some need more rest pauses and some less and some
hardly any. It was how Sri Krishnamacharya taught me Yogasanas for
decades--, to have complete control over the breath while practicing
asanas and apply the breath thoughtfully and well to different
individuals and different conditions and in different movements/
vinyasas.

A long-winded article on 'breath' in asanas.!
Thank you
Sincerely
Srivatsa Ramaswami

P S Any comments, suggestions, pl write to in...@vinyasakrama.com. If
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