I make no secret of my love for the breath.
When we choose to breathe consciously we have the ability to experience ourselves in a huge array of altered states. And quickly, too. Breathwork is my favoured way to manage stress.
Sit beautifully
…an invitation I make before teaching any breath, to sit beautifully and take on a breath practice is to become utterly present, right here right now.
Conscious breathing is, in my experience, the way to gain mastery over the mind.
From here, what you can offer to the other is exceptionally generous.
These concepts, that allude to the power of the breath in changing how you feel, think, and behave, frame the intention I hold when teaching my 30 minute breathwork classes every Monday morning.
Three years of community
At the time of writing it is March 2023. It was three years ago, in the first lockdown of 2020, that I began offering a Monday morning breathwork class.
Some people have come every week ever since. Others dip in and out. On each six-week cycle of classes we welcome new people from all corners of the world.
I would like to build on the success of these classes and encourage more of you to join.
What to expect…
You may have considered joining, but are hesitant. Perhaps unsure about what to expect. For this reason I thought it useful to explain a little more about what the Monday breathwork classes involve.
Starting the week strong (or gentle)
You join by signing up for a series of six classes.
Each six-week series has a theme. I tend to alternate the themes between those that lend themselves to strong, high oxygen, breath practices and those that align with more soothing, gentle, low-oxygen breaths.
There are no rules, though, and each six-week series will include a broad range of breathwork practices that come from many different sources.
30 minutes to change…
The practice lasts for thirty minutes.
I join the class ten minutes before we start to welcome you and chat to anyone who would like to.
We open at 6am with the Kundalini Global stretch. This serves both to open a sacred space and to prepare body and mind for the breath.
We work through four breath practices in the thirty minutes. We do each for 3-5 minutes with a pause between.
I explain and demonstrate a breath and then join you in practicing it.
The class are all recorded, they are available to those signed up to a series for a month after the six weeks come to an end.
The joy of community
The invitation is to have your camera on, but you will not be watched, corrected or commented upon.
The camera-on-invitation is for the sense of community. If you’d prefer the privacy of keeping it off that is no problem. Participants are muted throughout.
Most often, all of the breathwork can be done sitting on the floor or in a chair, on the end of your bed…
On occasion, a breath may be combined with a stretch or mudra where being on a yoga mat is helpful. If this is the case, I usually name it at the opening of that class.
At the end of the four breath practices we have a short relaxation and then all unmute for a noisy goodbye.
The butterfly effect
I often consider the butterfly effect of each of us stepping back out into the week having reset and made a big change to how we feel.
The breath can allow you to stand up and be present. To stop losing your blob. We can all choose this path. On it, of course, you can have a bad day. But, in the long-term, if you have a job to do, if you’re a parent, if you’re in a relationship, when you learn to regulate, and choose to do it, you become the beacon light of transformation.
If there was ever a time for sharing the potency of breathwork with others, it is now.
There are a lot of cults of thought around the breath, a lot of gurus and experts saying all kinds of things about exactly how you should breathe and why. I teach breathwork in a different way. Non-dogmatic and with a broad view of the possibilities.
It is hard to beat…
I have, over decades, amassed an array of practices from a huge variety of sources. I explore them through all kinds of lenses, but something that I consider in all is how and why they interact with our experience of our body and mind relative to physiological and psychological manifestations of stress, anxiety and overwhelm. For this, it is hard to beat breathwork.
It is a fabulous act of active self care and I applaud all who choose to join me.
Current breathwork series:
