Lil Thoughts: Session 4 - Accessible Yoga Training

Take Aways from my Accessible Yoga Training Jan-Mar 2024

These thoughts are not endorsed by Accessible Yoga. I am sharing my personal thoughts that have arisen during classes. Any direct quotes from teachers in class will be clearly credited! Assume otherwise that anything written here is my own interpretation.

Class 4: Pranayama

Word Count: 413

Reading Time: ~2min

Photo by Raspopova Marina on Unsplash

Breath Beyond Binaries

• Breath cannot be anymore about “right” than it is about “wrong.”

• If we cannot breathe wrong, then we also cannot breathe right

• The binary is contained in both words, not just in “wrong”

Breath as a Conscious Practice

• When we breathe as a practice, we practice with a certain energetic impact in mind (calm, activate, increase heat, concentrate or direct energy, etc).

• The question is not:

  • am I breathing right?

  • am I breathing wrong?

• The answer therefore cannot be:

  • “yes, you are breathing right” anymore than it can be “no, you are breathing wrong”

• The question is:

  • Am I experiencing the impact I intended through this particular breath?

• The answer then can be:

  • Yes, this breath is having the intended impact, so I will continue with it

  • No, this breath is not having the intended impact, and I will stop and change

    • this may involve making changes to established breath techniques for different body-minds

My Role as a Teacher

• As a teacher, my role is to understand the energetic impacts of particular breath techniques and to communicate:

  • those possible impacts and

  • the ways in which that technique might yield that impact

  • diversity is fact, which means that people may experience a different impact than intended (due to trauma, etc).

• My role as teacher is to help students understand over time what they:

  • are experiencing before the breath

  • want to experience via the breath

  • can experience via the breath

  • are experiencing after the breath

• As a teacher, I should neither provide too little instruction, nor too little choice

  • Instruction (providing information) is not to be confused with direction (controlling behavior)

  • Too little instruction:

    • can be dangerous because different breath techniques can have serious impacts and not everyone knows what those impacts are or how to manage them

    • downplays:

      • the discernment required to understand what impact we want to experience via the breath

      • the training and skill necessary to make the conscious choices to experience that impact (or to stop it) as safely as possible

    • denies students the opportunity to learn how to choose a way of breathing that moves them toward their desired impact by changing the breath

  • To little choice is dangerous for the same reasons: people must learn to be able to stop or adjust as needed, even if in conflict with the instruction

    • Choice is best provided with open-ended examples of variations

  • Balance is needed. Too much choice can be very overwhelming for newcomers and for traumatized people

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