A Noticing

Art credit: "Breathe" by Melanie Weidner, Art and Wisdom Cards

​It struck me today---- a bizarre phenomenon that I have noticed over my years of teaching yoga.  To be honest, it holds over the years of my own practice as well.
 
It is this--- When leading a yoga practice, I notice that many students, I’d even say most, particularly in balancing poses, simply stop breathing.  In all my years of teaching, I cannot think of a single class where I have not observed this phenomena, even with my endless encouragement and mantra throughout the practice, "Breathe."
 
Without the moving breath, I notice how the practice of many students freezes and tightens, it becomes a practice of intensity without the grace of spaciousness, "hardening" on many levels.
 
But when students breathe----- Wow!!!  What emerges is a deep fullness and fluidity that bubbles up in the whole of their being, whether they are holding a shape in stillness, or even when they "fall out." Over time we even begin to giggle when we fall out in our practice.  Hahahaha!   We laugh together, reground, and begin again.  Oh it is so refreshing and glorious.  Grace upon grace right in the very core of our being and in our sharing of that experience.
 
Practice:  Notice this week when you have stopped breathing.  Notice without harshness, without judgmentalism.  Just notice with curiosity and great compassion.  What does this not breathing feel like?............ Then release into the inbreath……. Does anything change or shift?...... How does this relate to anything?
 
I look forward to sharing our noticings and our wonderings with one another.
 
With much love,
Julia