Remove Physical and Mental Stress with Breathing

On October 24, Kevin and I attended the Breathing Master Class with Vladimir Vasiliev at the Systema HQ in Toronto. Many of the exercises focus on removing fear from the body and psyche. I have never been in a fight, nor do I ever plan to. Physical struggles for me are wrestling laundry basket up and down the stairs or battling weeds my garden. Even though the exercises were put in the context of combat and physical confrontation, I found myself relating to the work from the perspective of day-to-day life.

Calm the Mind

The first exercise we practiced was “light breathing”. We started with a light inhale, feeling the sensation of air entering the nose. Then gradually we extended the focus to the whole body. The light breathing gathers the mind through physical sensation and action, rather than thinking or imagining. There are times I feel anxious and restless with thousands incomplete thoughts swarming in my head. I cannot think to myself “Focus!”, because that would be adding another thought to the bubbling cauldron of thoughts. But by feeling my own breath, I can center myself in my physical being and ground myself in the here and now.

Awareness & Recovery

Often we have unnecessary tension in the body because we didn't notice it. In one of the exercise we were instructed to sit or lay in awkward postures holding our breath, notice the discomfort that built up in the body, then use breathing to remove it. If the stress on the body is acknowledged and dealt with at the level of “discomfort”, it will not have the chance to accumulate and develop into something worse. At the workshop we learned to constantly and quickly evaluate the internal state of the body and recover fully and honestly before any stress accumulate.

Emotional Cleansing

Breath is the bridge between the physical and the psychological. State of mind effects the way we breath and vice versa. When emotions becomes more intense (e.g. from fear, anger, grief, etc.), breathing becomes compromised. When there's not enough oxygen, body becomes tense. When the body becomes tense, it's harder to breath. Then we tend to become more emotional. On top of that, physical discomforts (e.g. pain, fatigue, tension, etc.) often negatively effect the emotional state, feeding the vicious cycle. At the workshop, we practiced breathing under the effect of physical and emotional challenges. Instead of letting negative emotions surge and swell, we treat it the same way as physical stress and remove it with breathing.

Breath work is healing both for the body and the mind. We now practice these exercises and more at our weekly Breathing for Health classes. If you would like to see what breathing practices can do for you, please join us every Monday & Thursday at 4:30 pm.

Notes from the Workshop: Breathing for Health - Flexibility & Mobility

We had our first Breathing for Health workshop on October 22.  The topic was "Flexibility & Mobility".  I would like to share a couple notes from the evening.

RELAXING INSTEAD OF STRETCHING
We hold unnecessary tension in our joints and muscles, sometimes unconsciously.  By relaxing and letting go the tension, we can gain flexibility without holding a stretch.  At the workshop, we combined breathing and rhythmic, repetitive movements.  Each time the breath changed (inhale to exhale, exhale to inhale), the movement changed as well.  Artificially taking "deep breath" often causes its own type of tension.  Instead, the breathing pattern should be casual.  The breath should not be held and there should be no pause in the movement.   Sometimes, we can tap the tense spots with our fingers, reminding the area to release.

ONE THING AT A TIME
Often when we were taught a stretch, we were given a goal (e.g. touch you toe).  Then we contort the body to achieve the perceived desired shape.  But in order to obtain "the goal", we move multiple parts of the body (e.g.  round the spine, turn the shoulder, crank the neck), reducing the effectiveness of the stretch, or worse, creating new tension or injuring ourselves.  At the workshop, we asked the participants to focus on how they feel internally and try to move one thing at a time.  So, instead of "touching the toe", we want to keep the body square, back straight and just simply "fold at the hip joint".  Also, we tried to isolate each types of movement (e.g. turn first, then extend).  Many were surprised by how much easier it was when they only needed to do one thing at a time.

TENSION AS A TOOL

Towards the end of the workshop, we used conscious, intentional tension to help the body relax further. Lying on the floor, we tensed up the body lightly with inhalation, then relaxed with exhalation.  Then we proceeded to pass the tension from one part of the body to another part, then release the tension from different body parts separately.  Tension as a training tool can heightened body awareness and teach us how to control our own body.

It's difficult to cover everything we did in the workshop but I hope my notes gave a glimpse of our breathing work.  Next workshop is November 19, 6:00 - 7:30 pm.  The focus next time will be "strength & movement".  Speaking as a person who had been physically weak and inactive for most of her life, I found this approach to strength and conditioning to be very effective and surprisingly easy.  So I highly recommend people to come and try it out.