Too Darn Hot! Super Cool Minimal Movement - 2 - See Saw Breathing
Too Darn Hot
Super Cool Minimal Moves
Breathing Deeply - The See Saw Breathing Lesson or “Parts and Functions in Breathing” from the Awareness Through Movement book
With this “see saw” or “paradoxical” breathing, I’m taking on a lesson I have resisted. This breather teaches pretty much the opposite of what we’ve been developing for a while. Here, paradoxically, inhaling means expanding the chest; exhaling is rounding out the entire front-to-back belly.
Babies begin as belly breathers, but with development comes a shift to breathing into the chest. We want to explore that return to childhood in this ‘Too Darn Hot” lesson.
Gravity, use of wight-bearing muscles, orientation and state of mind all affect the way we breathe. In this lesson, Moshe takes us on a tour of how the body breathes by doing what he does best - messing with us.
“You will see that breathing becomes easier and more rhythmical when the body is held erect without and conscious effort, that is, when the entire weight is supported be the skeletal structure.”
“Most people at first fail to expand their stomach in all directions unless they have a strong and well-developed back and hips. Instead, they strain the muscles of the back in the neighborhood of the hips until the spine rises from the ground to the hips. Attention must therefore be paid to establishing equal pressure in the stomach in all directions, including backward toward the floor. When you can do this you will find that pushing the stomach out of forward will expel the air from the lungs.”
“In maturity, persons tend to repeat a limited number of movements - sometimes for hours on end - to the neglect of other movements. The body then tends to accustom itself to this restricted number of movements, the skeletal structure adjusts to them, changes result and the posture becomes crooked.”
We have been practicing rocking the pelvis with the breath: pubic bone down with the inhale, tailbone up with the exhale. Today we switch it up to more clearly sense how the upper and lower ribs, front and back of body, even the sides, enable easy breathing.
We start on the back, expanding the chest with the inhale. Then we go opposite, expanding the belly on the inhale. Then comes the “see saw,” where with breath held, we expand the chest then belly. It’s admittedly, a bit of a low impact workout. (You might feel it in underused spine and back muscles later.)
From there, we go into different orientations, letting the floor give feedback to the front and sides of the body while we “see saw.” For your tanning preparation, assume the ‘beach chair position” to sense how the head’s weight affects the spine when breathing.
There’s a final sequence on hands and knees, like a four-legged. If that isn’t for you, have a low stool to drape yourself over. That will work just fine.
Science Nerd Candy Bowl:
Breathing Mechanism Animation. Abassin Fangbemi (1:33) - A different view of the mechanics of breathing from front, back and side
What is Paradoxical Breathing (0:10) - What paradoxical or “see saw” breathing looks like
Set Up:
Will be in positions on back, belly, side, “beach chair position,” hands and knees, and sitting on floor.
May want support for hips when on belly, for head on hands and knees, and under hips for sitting on floor.
May want a low stool to lie over if hands and knees doesn’t work, same with sitting on floor
OR sit on chair with a back; changing orientations to press against back of chair for feeling pressure on front, sides.
How you might feel after this lesson: Cool and quiet; Aware of diaphragmatic movements independent of postural muscles; Possessed of another approach to breathing; Tuned into the way gravity affects the quality of the breath; Finding full volume of the chest and belly; Clear on side-to-side biases in spine and ribs as a starting point for deeper balancing; Ready to practice both breathing and tanning in different positions.
So many ways to be “Too Darn Hot!” A breathy version from Holly Cole.