A frightening virus had begun running rampant through the airways, nasal passages, and lungs of our world my devices continually circulated images of people being robbed of their breath for no reason other than their skin color and daily panic attacks robbed me of oxygen and mental stability-all of which made breathing a new source, and result, of the anxiety I was facing. With our understanding of the way asana fits into the full spectrum of a yoga practice, how Western culture has appropriated and modified the original teachings, and everything about life coming into question these days-and a lot more time to do my own thing on my mat-I recently decided to dive deeper into the breath patterns that had brought me so much comfort in the past.
One or two of my more creative teachers would occasionally change things up, asking us to breathe out of pattern, but my breath inevitably fell back into the ingrained rhythm, almost as proof that there was a rightness to inhaling into extension, and exhaling into flexion. Even as a trainee, they were points to memorize rather than to really understand. It felt so good to be able to rely on what seemed like an inviolate, absolute way of being-working with the natural urges of my body, rather than against them, like so many forces in the world encouraged-that I rarely stopped to think about the reasoning behind the pairings of breath and movement that had seduced me. Long before I began training, I’d been lulled by these rhythms in the vinyasa yoga classes I took several times a week, my teacher’s voice seeming to summon a natural dance between my gross and subtle selves. Of course, we wanted to pass our exam, but we also wanted to make sure we were teaching yoga the “right” way. I remember huddling around a sticky Formica table at a cafe in midtown Manhattan with my fellow trainees (those were the days…) working hard to commit the instructions to memory. These cues-couplets of breath and body-implanted themselves in my brain as a new yoga teacher. Inhale raise your arms overhead, exhale fold over your legs.