Pranayama & Practice

After practice this week and our lecture about Pranayama and the Tantric Yoga, I can definitely say that I am starting to better understand the purpose of these practices. Specifically in class, learning about the body and the Nadis really fascinated me for a couple of reasons. First, I think it is interesting to know that there are phases and types of cleansing that is done for each of the Nadis. This may be done due to the fact that the Nadis are considered to be pathways to the mental and spiritual matrices of the physical body. There is so much importance that pranayama has in the yoga world. Pranayama is a very powerful practice that requires you to control your breathing. There are three types of Pranayama; inhalation, retention, and exhalation. They say that for every inhale breathed in is life being put into you, and for every exhale taken is almost like a mini death because for every exhale taken, Pranayama leaves the body.   

I never really had a problem with breathe work in my practices. In fact, breathing helps me alleviate the tension or the uncomfortability I feel when performing a certain posture or a pose. If a certain pose seems to me difficult for me, I notice myself slowly with control inhaling until my ribs are big and it is when I gain the balance back or accept the complexity of the posture that I will begin to slowly exhale this same breathe out.