Day #9 - Pranayama with Prashant

The pranayama class was taught by Prashant, but actually I should not say ‘taught’ because Prashant is currently not teaching.

He says I am not going to teach you anything you have to learn for yourself.

So that is what we did.

He took us through a series of postures and requested we learn something for ourselves about pranayama from our observations.

It is both a refreshing change and a shock to the system this new method of learning.

He is essentially telling us to not do and in the not doing we can learn about the process through observation.

Clever… although frustrating at times.

Especially because we have been conditioned to listen and do. We are so used to being told what to do and how to do, and now this man is telling me to learn on my own.

In a moment of thought… of which there were many during the class, I was thinking but who is going to teach me kapalabhati?

I guess not Prashant.

But what he did say and I experienced and hence learned is that…

Pranayama is not so much about the chest and thoracic region and that we put all our emphasis there.

And we are missing the pelvic region and how important this area is for breath.

He talked about the organs of the pelvic region being organs of exhalation while the lungs and chest are organs of inhalation.

In each posture swastikasana, virasana, supta baddha konasana and setu bandha we did simple uninstructed breathing and simply observed how the breath was different in each posture because of the different pelvic positions.