Victorious Breath

Let this blogpost from Yoganonymous, written by Zuzu Perkal deepen your Yoga Practice and Experience on the mat . . . Namaste

Prana Power: Ujjayi Pranayama, The Victorious Breath

 

 As T.K.V Desikachar states, "The quality of our breath is extremely important because it expresses our inner feelings."

If you've  ever been to a yoga class, you've probably  heard something along the lines of, "take deep Ujjayi breaths" or "let your breath sound like an ocean wave."
Ujjayi Pranayama is a type of breath work that is commonly used in various styles of yoga but is rarely explained thoroughly enough for practitioners to truly understand.
It is an ancient yogic breathing technique that is used as a powerful tool to advance your yoga practice. When done correctly, it calms the mind and inspires deep inward exploration. Like all elements of yoga, it requires practice, patience, and an open mind and heart.

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Ujjayi Pranayama, The Victorious Breath

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Pronounced: ooh-JAH-yee prah-nah-YAH-mah
Ujjayi: Sanskrit  prefix "ud"  and the root "ji",  combined together as, "ujji",  which means "one who is victorious." Ujjayi breath is translated as the "victorious breath."
Pranayama: Sanskrit "prana" meaning "life force"  or "vital energy" and "ayama" which is to "control" or "extend." Therefore, pranayama is to "control the breath."
Type of Yoga Practiced In: Hatha, Ashtanga, Vinyasa, and Power Yoga
Benefits: Ujjayi Pranayama is both energizing and relaxing as it sends fresh oxygen throughout the body. When practiced correctly it will create internal heat and give you an uplifting boost of energy. It's also used to increase the flow of prana (life force energy) in the physical body. This form of pranayama (breathwork) creates friction in the throat which causes the breath to sound like ocean waves crashing on the beach.
Why is the breath being audible so important? It serves as a focal point during your practice, settling the fluctuations of the mind and bringing more awareness to the internal body, mind, and spirit. Thus, Ujjayi increases concentration while reminding one to surrender and find ease throughout the practice.
Ujjayi breath can be practiced both on and off the mat. Next time you're feeling stressed or uneasy, practice your Ujjayi breath for a few minutes to calm both the physical and emotional bodies.
Get Started:

1. Sit in a comfortable seat and close the eyes for a few slow deep breaths. Take a few moments to deepen the breath and find an even length inhalation and exhalation.
2. Bring your awareness to where the breath goes as it enters the body. Ujjayi breath is a diaphragmatic breath, filling the belly and then lungs on the inhale. Practice filling the belly, then lungs, taking a brief pause at the top of the inhale, and emptying the lungs and then slightly  contracting the belly to release air from the belly. Notice  the slight pause again at the bottom of the exhale.
3. Maintaining this diaphragmatic breathing, begin deep breaths in through the nose and exhale out the mouth, as you imagine you were fogging  up a mirror with your breath. Your exhale should make the sound "haaaaah." Practice this a few times.
4. Continue  this breath, but this time, seal the lips and create the same "haaaaah" sound with the mouth closed. You should notice  the slight constriction in the back of the throat, which narrows  the passage of air for longer and slower breath cycles.
5. Keep the mouth sealed as you breathe in and out cultivating an oceanic sounding breath, in and out through the nose. This is Ujjayi Pranayama!

Length of Practice: Ujjayi Pranayama can be used throughout the duration of your yoga asana practice. Begin the warming breath in your meditation at the beginning of class. As you move from pose to pose, keep the awareness on the even breath cycles to keep the mind clear. When it comes time to rest in Savasana, return to normal breathing in and out the nose.
Speed of Practice: The length of inhalations and exhalations should be even in length and speed. Ujjayi breath is a slower form of pranayama due to the constriction in the back of the throat. Try to keep the breath on a continuous cycle of five-seven counts in and five-seven counts out.
Recommended Asana: Explore various poses and styles of yoga using Ujjayi pranayama. All yogis are different and each time we step on our mat is an opportunity to explore our breath and body. Always honor your body while practicing. Ujjayi pranayama can be practiced during all poses until Savasana.
Fun Facts: Ujjayi Pranayama is often referred to as the "Darth Vader breath," due to the sound it makes.
The breath is a direct response to how you feel and think. When you're  nervous, scared, stressed, or sad, the breath will reflect this by being shallow,  shaky, and uneven. When you're calm, happy, and balanced, the breath will mimic these qualities.
The resistance of airflow when using Ujjayi helps maintain the elasticity of the lungs.

Go to this URL and watch the YouTube video on how to find your Victorious Breath:

https://youtu.be/82Qq1qwJ77I

May There Be Peace

“You are imperfect, you are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.”
  -  Brené Brown

I believe we all choose the family and the life we are born into so that we may learn the lessons we most need to be our best, most authentic selves . . . in order to create life with less struggle, more happiness - real happiness - and offer up the best of who we are to honour our spirits and those whom grace our lives, and to the universe in its totality.  

Along the way, we meet struggle, head on . . . sometimes we invite it in . . . and even though it sucks ass . . . it belongs to us so that we can mould it into the strong, incredible potential that lives and breathes in us all.  

I truly believe that all things in life come to us in forms that both feel terrible and feel incredible to allow our souls to transform . . . to come up from the depths of this wired struggle to a place where we truly believe that we are worthy of amazing, unconditional love and acceptance in this universe.  

When you feel down, alone, ungrateful, and stomach-wrenching anger . . . that too is your path to bliss in this life.  If you practice Yoga, Meditation, Mindfulness and you believe that your life can be transformed by that path . . . or if your spiritual realm and belief comes from some other higher power, activity or belief . . . there can be no expectation that you will be in total bliss every day of your life.  The mud exists for the lotus flower to grow and blossom in all its glory, just as it exists for your human spirit to reach its greatest potential. 

Any time you feel heavy from whatever struggle that faces you, remember, with time, love and nurturing of spirit, mind and body - however that looks for you - you will find gratitude, peace and be stronger for it all. 

Always grow . . . practice gratitude . . . love purely. 

May there be peace . . .

Namaste 

Jen

The Life Altering Capacity of Yoga

Each person comes to Yoga for their own reason; we all have our Story, our purpose in life, our struggle; what brings us to the mat for the first time.  Read Vanessa Lee's story from a Yoganonymous article and how something as 'simple' as a Selfish inspired and moulded her life ...

Vanessa'se story inspired me.  I hope you find your own inspiration from it as well xo

This post was submitted by a member of our community.

I’ve read a few articles bashing the "yoga selfie" as of late.

If you’re not sure what a yoga selfie is, it’s exactly what it sounds like: a selfie in a yoga pose—and they’re all over Instagram and probably everywhere else in social media land.

There’s quite a bit of controversy suggesting that those who partake in yoga selfies and the social media-based yoga challenges are not “real yogis.” It’s been said that yoga selfies are no more than self-indulgence and that they completely minimize what yoga is supposed to symbolize: A private and inward journey. It's even been said that yoga selfies are narcissistic.

While some can certainly argue all of those points quite well, yoga selfies changed my life for the better. In fact, I owe my entire yoga journey to the yoga selfie.

I’ve been doing yoga since 2007. I use that phrase loosely, because for approximately the first seven years of my stint, I didn’t really "do" yoga. I knew the basics, I attended gym yoga classes, and I knew I liked it. I attended what I now know were Vinyasa flow classes but in my small town yoga just wasn’t a thing. There weren’t any dedicated yoga studios at the time, and in the random event that one would pop up on a downtown corner, it was closed a month or two later. I was fortunate that the teacher I had was really great. She held my interest. When she left teaching, I kind of bailed on yoga. My relationship with it was intermittent and I didn't have a clue as to what a dedicated practice was.

In late 2013, I realized I really needed some form of consistent exercise in my life. I had gained a few pounds and since I’ve always lived with generalized anxiety, it was time to put some work into my physical and emotional self. It only made sense that I reincorporated yoga into my life.

Again, just the basics: some Sun Salutations, stretching, and breathing.

I have been in love with Instagram since it began, so one evening on a business trip in early 2014, I came upon this amazing gallery of someone’s yoga poses. Extremely advanced yoga poses. I was absolutely intrigued and had an immediate desire to imitate the poses.

(Stay with me here because I know this is where the controversy comes in.)

Yes, I wanted to imitate the poses. I wanted tostand on my head. This woman was fit and awesome. She was balanced and was so inspirational in her posts. I wanted to hashtag #inversionsmakeyouhot and radiate this beautiful art form that I saw. I didn’t even know yoga could get this advanced, this intense, this beautiful. I was beyond inspired.

I quickly learned that—surprise, surprise—it wasn’t that easy to imitate the poses or the lifestyle she portrayed. Apparently standing on your headrequired work. Physical work, sure, but emotional work as well. In my case, fear was a huge factor. I wanted to face my fears, but it also made me hide deeper. I wanted to understand the poses—the asanas—and I wanted to understand why they were beneficial. It sparked a need in me to understand, research, and learn abot yoga... In its truest form.

I soon started to follow every yoga Instagram superstar I could find, as well as other amateurs like myself. I could not believe the community I found in the space of social media. All of the yoga challenges became a part of my daily routine, which had actual prizes at the end of the month—but I didn’t participate in them for tangible things: I just wanted to learn, I wanted to be inspired, I wanted to be motivated by others, and possibly inspire others.

I found myself so inspired that I would go to the local bookstore to read about the history of yoga, chakras, different styles of yoga, different teachers, and all of the benefits yoga has on the mind, body, and spirit. I hadn’t felt so passionate about anything in my life, as far back as I could remember. It felt so incredible to have this connection with yoga.

With a new life.

This year also coincided with the worst year of my personal life, so all of this newfound knowledge about yoga could not have come at a better time. Yoga saw me through a divorce and major family illnesses. Yoga helped me through navigating becoming a single mom and through a broken heart. Through career upheavals and through soul searching. I turned to yoga every single day for solitude and healing. Who knew that yoga could do all of this if you did it correctly?

And speaking of correctly, I may be an unorthodox yogi: I truly don’t believe that yoga can be done wrong. I’m not vegan. I don’t meditate as much as I’d like to. I don’t practice for 90 minutes a day. I don’t love some of the yoga styles. I don’t know about every chakra or even every asana's Sanskrit name.

What I do know is that yoga is when I breathe through life. It’s when I feel the most connected with myself and when I can get my mind to settle down. It’s when I feel good about my body and all its imperfections and its limitations. It’s when I accept that backbends may never be my thing and my shoulders and hamstrings are much too tight. It’s just… Practice. Of so many things.

It’s a journey. And yoga selfies started all of it for me.

I never reached any kind of Instagram popularity with my own yoga selfies, nor did I aspire to. I don’t participate in challenges much anymore or even post many yoga selfies. Yoga selfies were just a starting point for me into something much deeper and more meaningful, and, for that, I am forever grateful.

Respect others' journeys into yoga. Try not to judge. That yogi that you’re dismissing as narcissistic on Instagram may just be changing someone’s life.

They changed mine.