Oct 29
Tuning-in to God’s “Breath of Life” with Aerobic Exercise
Culturing beautiful, purposeful athletic textures, forms, flavors and functions, which enliven profound creativity, intuition, and love, which in turn all build athletic strength, speed, agility, dynamism, balance, etc. is best done with the use of an Ayurveda breathing technique called Ujjayi Pranayama.
Correct ujjayi inhale and exhale oxygenates the tiny capillaries that surround one’s 600 million lung alveoli and then squeezes out carbon dioxide from the same. After a few years of devout Ujjayi Pranayama practice, I inhale two or three times as much air. And of course air quantity is necessary for vigorous exercise, but overtime ujjayi breathing is what most efficiently cultures deeply balanced, harmonious, and refined (powerful) athletic qualities. Consistent Athletic Bliss Conditioning using Ujjayi Pranayama refines one’s life force towards “enlightened” health and fitness—the Blissfit Zone.
In his book Body, Mind and Sport, Dr. John Douillard gives a step-by-step method to easily learn correct Ujjayi Pranayama:
STEP 1 Inhale normally through the nose. At first, do not take a large breath. It will be easy to master this technique with shallow breaths in the beginning.
STEP 2 During the exhale, breathe out only through the nose. As you exhale, constrict the throat slightly, as if you were lightly snoring. The sound should be a little like Darth Vadar. You will notice that in normal nose breathing you can feel the air coming out through the nostrils, similar to the feeling you get when you blow your nose. In this technique you will feel a sensation in your upper throat; it doesn’t feel as if the air is moving through your nostrils at all. Of course this is just an illusion; your mouth is closed, and there is simply no other way out!
STEP 3 Try making this sound during the nasal exhale, without contracting your abdominal muscles. Go ahead and do it now. If you are doing the Darth Vadar breathing correctly you will find it impossible to make that sound without slightly contracting your stomach muscles.
STEP 4 If you’re not sure you’ve got it right, try it this way: Instead of focusing on exhaling through your nose and constricting your throat, think about squeezing the air out from your tummy by tightening your stomach muscles. You will find that the tighter you make your stomach during the exhale, the more pronounced the Darth Vadar resonant sound will be.
STEP 5 If you’re still not sure, take out a pair of sunglasses and blow on them, with your mouth open, as if to fog them up for cleaning. You will make a HAAA sound that comes from inside your throat rather than your mouth. Now, close your mouth and make the same glass-fogging sound, but through your nose. It is the exact same breath, only done with the nose, rather than the mouth. The only slight difference is that instead of just a short glass-fogging burst, I want you to carry that HAAA sound throughout the exhale. The same breath that cleans your glasses with the mouth open will mimic Darth Vadar with the mouth closed.
STEP 6 Now that you have mastered making this sound with a shallow breath, begin to increase the size of the breath, ensuring a quality, resonant, Darth Vadar sound. Keep increasing the depth of the breath until you are taking in every last bit of air and squeezing out every last bit. Practice this as much as possible while sitting or walking, because the better you make this sound now with a deep maximal breath, the easier it will be to apply it to your exercise program.
Practice or polish Ujjayi Pranayama often so that during vigorous and/or dynamic athletics you are comfortably able to fill and empty your lungs. Such “enlightened” breathing attunes athletic performance with God’s “breath of life”, which throughout history religions have appreciated as inhaling through prayer, meditation, and/or self-referral with inner divine well-being and exhaling through thought, speech and action to fulfill God’s Will. The closer you can tune-in to God’s “breath of life” the more quantity and quality of benefits you enjoy from its inherent divine powers.
