My first Yogic breath!

I grew up with severe asthma, I was diagnosed at 18 months old with asthma and spent years of my childhood in and out of hospital in-between school. In fact, I had missed so much school at one point I was moved into a small special class to try to catch up.  I have many strange memories of these years, waking up in oxygen tents in the hospital, where I could see a fuzzy image of my mother sitting the other side of the thick plastic oxygen tent, constantly being tied up to a monitor with a needle in my hand or arm and tubes all over the place (it seemed) or lying on my bed at home pre or post hospital admission feeling so weak I didn’t even have the energy for thoughts. I remember once not minding if I lived or died because to feel fear of death you need energy (the mind needs energy to think!), and there was none!  At 8 years old I was put onto life support ventilator for 3 days and nights. I remember waking up on the hospital theatre table seeing lots of faces above me with green surgery masks on, I remember hearing a man saying ‘she’s coming round’ which they obviously didn’t want to happen then I felt a surge and I was knocked out again under aesthetic. 

I think one of the most frustrating things for me then was in every other part of my body was fit and fine. Apart from my lungs! I always have strong memories of walking perhaps 20 metres and being exhausted, as though I had just climbed a mountain.  I think it’s difficult to grasp for those who have not suffered respiratory conditions and take the automatic function of the breath totally for granted! Through my negative experiences of poor breathing, it was clear to see a very direct connection in our energy levels and the quality and capacity to which we breath. 

I often wonder why people tend to look at things like diet before their breathing if they have issues with their energy levels! I have worked intensively with a few students who had long covid with extreme fatigue and the results have been miraculous!  I suppose one of the problems is we seem to underestimate just how poor ‘modern day’ breathing has become. Not only due to poor air quality but mostly our nervous systems are so over stimulated and ‘fried’ which directly effects the depth and capacity of our breathing patterns.

Ofcourse nobody tells us how we should be breathing. Even as a child when I went to hydrotherapy sessions where a physiotherapist taught me how to improve my breathing – looking back it was a total joke (no offense to all the physios out there) how little and basic these sessions were, compared to the vast amount I learned about how to breath in one of the last ancient living Yoga traditions the Gitananda Paramparai based in Puducherry, Tamil Nadu.

Coming back to my story after that really bad attack where I was on life support, I believe I had a change in medication and after that didn’t have any more hospital admissions, but I was on a lot of daily medication, needed a nebuliser at home all the time which I still had right up until I was finally able to let go if it after my yoga training in my 30s! I was exactly 30yrs old when I got out to Ananda Ashram after communicating with the teachers there for more than a year before and doing a preparatory course  (about 20 years ago now) I made the leap to do my training, got a sabbatical from my social work job and arrived in Puducherry where the ashram is located (not very far from the well-known Aurobindo ashram but its very different indeed!).

Theres a huge amount I could say about the ashram life but keeping to the point this was the first place I truly learnt how to breathe - my first yogic breath - in a very safe secure environment supported by the most incredible teachers who were living breathing examples of everything they taught. We did not practice the common modern breathing exercises with focus onto the abdomen (as the physio had taught me) but instead into the 18 sections of the lungs, if we include what we call the 'inner lobes' then it extends to 24 segments.

My lung capacity increased 3-fold (this was measured!) as I was able to turn my deep awareness of the lungs (because I already felt my lungs so much from almost dying many times over!) into a mindful force to open and increase the capacity. This proved to me that it is indeed true that our greatest weakness can also become our greatest strength. In my whole course no other student made such a dramatic change in their lung capacity. Once I had learned the techniques and practices specifically tailored to increase our lung capacity devised by Yoga Maharishi Dr Swami Gitananda Giri my life totally changed after that!

Suddenly I had energy!!! Suddenly I could walk further do more things without feeling worn out, I could get through a full day without needing to rest for a few hours. It felt like I had been literally reborn with a new body! This process involved all the time of the intensive 6-month residential sadhana that I did, which at the time was the longest yoga teacher training course available in the world (equating to 1500 hours in person contact time with the Gurus).

Having felt I discovered a true hidden treasure of pure ancient yogic wisdom from the world, more valuable than anything else I could think of I just knew I had to keep going with this! I returned a few months later, quitting my job to continue advanced training and make Yoga my life and reality. As Swamiji used to say and I quote – ‘Real yoga is NO option Yoga’. We get to a point, and we see there is no other path, it’s the ultimate path and we have to walk on it in one lifetime or another!

I have felt so much through the years that these precious teachings gave me so much more than I could ever have wished for, I birthed 3 healthy sons which I don’t believe before my yoga transformation I would have been physically capable of having even 1 child really! Established a Yoga centre and wrote and taught Yoga Teacher training courses since 2011.

Coming back to Pranayama and the difference between this and breathwork? Well Dr Ananda Bhavanani my mentor and guide states that we cannot experience Pranayama with a lung capacity of less than 60%. We need to be breathing to a certain level to be able to access prana! Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you have no respiratory issues, you will have that, not at all. In fact, over the years of measuring many students lung capacity I have been really quite shocked at how low they can be even in most people including yoga teachers!  The practices we use however always work to increase this (I’ve never seen them not work on an individual to some degree).  So, without this preparatory practice of opening and expanding our lung capacity cleansing the lungs with some specific bhastrika (lung cleansing) techniques, we are really only practicing breath work. To experience pranayama we need to have the preparatory work done. This is not sadly a 1 hour asana practice then we are done, its actually something we need to consistently practice until we have reached a certain point or lung capacity. Once we reach that point, we can then maintain it, but we need to get there first!

The Gitananda Paramparai is without doubt one of the most in-depth linages when it comes to pranayama (if not the most) the teachings are so rich, and the practices are powerful and profound. It is however a small tradition, Swamiji and Ammaji only trained a small number of students every year (around 10 students on average over the last 50 years, many of whom did the course rightly so for personal development rather than a desire to teach), so there are not so many Gitananda teachers out there in the world which is why it’s not so well known as some other schools. Teaching Yoga for us is more of a calling or a dharma than a career choice, that we are moved to share with sincere seekers. 

Now I am the lead Pranayama teacher for the Gitananda tradition under the support and mentorship of Yogacharya Dr. Ananda Bhavanani, son, and successor to Swami Gitananda. My drive and passion to share these Pranayama teachings lead me to eventually convince my Guru to agree to let me teach a 2-year Pranayama course sharing the wisdom of the 120 pranayamas within this tradition which has been my life’s greatest honour and a blessing!

By

Yogathilikam Deepika Giri