Align Pilates® Minneapolis

Yoga can be a bit contradictory. On one hand, a yoga practice is calm, relaxed and serene. In class, you move your body and try to find your center; the peaceful loving part of you that wants to be good and do good.

But as an acquaintance pointed out to me the other day, perhaps a dark underbelly lurks behind our drive to practice yoga. Aside from our pursuit of a peaceful state of mind and life, why else do we go to yoga class? To relent, release and relieve the bottled up stress, tension and emotion we hold in our muscles. In short, we’re pissed off, emotionally burdened and we need to let the damn tension out of our bodies before we freak out and do something VERY irrational.

That’s why we love the warrior pose. Strong, attentive and forceful, the warrior exhibits the contradictory nature of yoga as well as the reasons why we come to the mat. The pose pumps us up, yet it still extends a harmonious message: I am strong, I am ready and I can survive peacefully…as long as I keep going to yoga class.

Shootin’ at the walls of heartache, bang bang, I am the warrior.

Ujjayi. From the moment that I deciphered this word that my yoga instructor repeats in class, I become intrigued by it. Ujjayi breath is a deep breathing technique that adds rhythm, stability, and energy to the yoga practice while giving the body oxygen and ridding it of toxins. Also referred to as “ocean breath,” the Ujjayi is balancing and calming, helping you stay grounded throughout each pose transition.

Ujjayi breath is inhaled and exhaled through the nose. I like to think of it as filling up a deep balloon. The breath begins by filling up the stomach, and then rises to the rib cage. Finally, it pushes up through the chest and throat, and out through the nose. The duration of the breath is personal, controlled by the strength of your diaphragm. Like much else, practice makes perfect—the more you can use Ujjayi in yoga practice, the stronger your diaphragm and breath will become.

Ujjayi can be best when audible. As it flows in and out of the nose, it creates a sound akin to ocean waves rolling to and fro the shore, hence “ocean breath.” Think Darth Vader, but perhaps a healthier, happier, and more relaxed Darth Vader…in Buddha pose on a yoga mat.

Not only do I like what the Ujjayi breath adds to my yoga practice, but I simply enjoy saying it. Like the breathing technique it promotes, it sounds strong, inspiring, and thoughtful as it leaves the tongue.