Gluing the lungs: Freeing the breath

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Introduction

Feldenkrais breathing lessons are not designed to tell you how to breathe. Rather, they unhook chronic muscular habits so your breath adapts to the ever-changing demands of life.

This series can be incredibly useful. I suggest alternating it with a more active series, like bridging or hooking the toe. Don’t expect to do these experiments perfectly. Allow yourself to bumble through and “muck about,” as Moshe Feldenkrais would say. Use it as a discovery process to unravel stuck places in the breathing process.

For more on breathing, see my blog post, “Help! I breathe wrong!”

These lessons are quite beautiful in their quirky way. Don’t worry about the contrived breathing pattern, just do your best. In the end, it will totally change the way the diaphragm moves. You’ll feel lighter and freer, more spacious and taller.

Moshe says in this lesson:

What is "slowly"? That means not making large movements in the chest and the abdomen, but on the contrary, a quick short movement of breathing so [you] can follow what I say. You let air come into the lungs and immediately take it out. That means not to do deep breathing. Do not try to increase the movement of the chest and the abdomen.

It’s a funny instruction, but a potent one for shifting the long-held patterns of breathing. Don’t listen to me, test it for yourself.

AY201

Here we find space and length in the lungs in many different positions. Keep exploring the expansion of the lungs into the chest cavity, including backwards.

Moshe says in this lesson:

The whole essence is to do the whole process consciously….If, at your age, it has not improved until today, it means that the usual processes—those things done for other reasons than awareness and consciousness—do not work. The proof is that until today it is not good. So, for a moment, do not do other movements. By doing that you are "dumbing" the contrast. That means nothing of it will stay in your awareness and the process will continue the same as it has to date. Without knowledge, there isn't better ability.

Moshe speaks with a certain intensity, you can tell. These are not simple lessons, so don’t expect to “do” the movements, just feel what you feel within the parameters of the suggested movement and see what happens.

AY202

These lessons continue to improve the movement of the diaphragm. I quote from Moshe because they are complex, powerful, and profound lessons, and his introduction is eloquent. For this lesson, he says:

It is possible to improve the ability of the body with everything you do. If you increase the discriminations from time to time, there isn't anything one is involved with that does not improve. Everything improves.

It is also possible to improve the body's ability by calligraphy. For example, in Zen one is taught to write with a brush until it is done perfectly. When this is accomplished, the whole body improves down to the feet, to the breathing, to everything.

It is possible to improve everything by improving the relationship of the eyes and the neck muscles. If the movements of the head on the body improve, everything improves progressively. It is also possible to improve everything by breathing.

Now, we are trying to get from breathing that which is necessary to improve stability and the relationship between parts of the body. We already did this a few times. Now we will continue in an even clearer fashion.

AY203

This lesson starts to test the breathing process in standing in different ways. Again, don’t worry about doing it perfectly, just approximate the instructions as best you can and play around with the challenges it presents.

AY204