Pranayama Yoga Pranayama - the breath of yoga, by Jackie Le Brocq

Mira’s answer is that ‘the intake and expulsion of breath in the lungs happens like the pouring of water into and out of a jar. When you pour water in, it fills from the bottom; when you pour water out, it empties from the top. Similarly, inhaled air reaches the bottom of the lungs first, and exhaled air leaves the top of the lungs first.’ But is this THE correct way to breathe?

Desikachar teaches the exact opposite: inhale from the top down to the bottom and exhale from the bottom up to the top. Yet Iyengar and Desikachar both had the same teacher, Krishnamurthi. The reader had most recently been to a teacher who taught yet another way – the Gitananda way – inhale from the bottom up to the top and exhale from the bottom up to the top.

So what is the yoga student who does not exclusively follow one tradition to do? What is the natural process? And are the others just wrong?

To me the breath is the most important part of yoga practice. It is through awareness of the breath that the oneness, the wholeness, of body, mind and spirit is realised. Over the last twenty-five years I have been to teachers who teach all three methods and I have used their method. I have spent a lot of time watching how the breath works naturally while still, whilst moving and whilst in asanas, observing what works best for me and formulating what I wish to pass on to my students. The conclusion I have come to is that they are all right.

Try this:- Get into a comfortable position either lying perhaps in Savasana or semi-supine or seated perhaps in Siddhasana or just as you are reading this (with a straight spine of course!) and just watch your breath and try to see what the natural process is.

It seems to me that it’s more like filling and emptying a bath than pouring water into and out of a jug. When you fill a bath, it certainly fills from the bottom up to the top (or more likely only half way up) so Iyengar and Gitananda are right about that. But you could also view it from the prospective of the tap from which the water is coming. The water is undoubtedly coming in from the top and going all the way down to the bottom, just as the air you breathe comes in from your nose and goes all the way down to the bottom of your lungs and causes the diaphagm to move down and the abdomen to gently expand. So Desikachar is also right.

When you empty the bath, you pull the plug out so the water goes out through the plug hole. When you breath out there is a similar feeling in the solar plexus to a plug hole as the diaphragm goes back up and the abdomen goes back in where it came from and the ribs and upper chest go back in. So Desikachar and Gitananda are right about that. But it cannot be denied that the water level falls from the top down to the bottom, so Iyengar is also right.

So what is the natural process? It just depends on your perspective. But it may be worth noting that two out of the three authorities view the inhaling breath as from bottom to top, and two out of the three authorities view the exhaling breath as from bottom to top. What is more important is that the natural process of breathing should be just that – natural, effortless and comfortable. It should not be forced, artificial or uncomfortable. Perhaps this is where the reader ran into difficulties.

Mira’s article comes under the heading of Pranayama, which brings up another point of contention. Given that you have to breathe whilst you are doing asanas, I would not call being aware of the direction in which your breath is entering and leaving the lungs Pranayama. (Where is the line drawn between basic breathing and Pranayama?) Awareness is a prime objective of yoga practice and I have found that it is through awareness of the breath that all those discoveries are made. I want to encourage that awareness to develop. Keep watching the breath whenever you think about it – during your yoga practice, out walking the dog, sitting at the computer – observe what your perspective is on the natural process and take it from there.

Lendrick Lodge offers pranayama yoga courses in Scotland.