How To Rest Between Breaths Video

It's important to rest between breaths in yoga. Learn how to rest between breaths in this video about yoga positions and moves.

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Pause or hold between breaths
Find comfortable position
Lengthen the spine & lift head
Close eyes
Focus on stillness between breaths

About this Author

Cindy Mastry has practiced yoga since the age of eight, and also has a background in Jazz and Ballet. Active in the fitness industry for nearly twenty years, she teaches aerobics, kickboxing, and yoga at many fitness centers in the Tampa Bay area. Cindy trained with 84 year-old Master Yogi Monk, Baba Hari Dass at the Mt. Madonna Center in California and owns/operates "Yoga Etc Studio" in St. Petersburg, Florida. Cindy teaches yoga to people of all ages and experience levels and at very competitive rates.

CINDY MASTRY: Namaste. In yoga, when we speak of a resting breath we're speaking of holes in between the breath it's called Kumbhaka. So when we inhale we then try to find the point of stillness in between the inhalation and the exhalation and then as you exhale, you try find that point of stillness in between the exhalation and inhalation. So [PH] Faith is going to help me demonstrate. She's finding a really comfortable seated position somewhere she could sit for quite sometime. She's routing her sits bone down into the earth, and she's lengthening up through both side bodies, lengthening up through the crown of the head. Allowing her heart to open wide, she's going to soften her eyes close, and she's going to be coming into her lung slow deep breathing. She's going to practice with that for a couple of times and then on her next inhalation, she's just going to find that stillness totally filling her lungs, and then just try to float in that stillness. Now the danger there is that you get all tense, "Oh no. I'm holding breath," and get all tense but we don't want to do that. We want to relax around the breath, just soft and relax, and feel as if you're floating, and then whenever is necessary you never want into that tense spot whenever you need to go ahead and exhale. And when you're finish with your exhale, see if you can just hold. Hold that spot, hold that float, find that stillness, and then whenever you need to you begin to inhale again. So we hold the breath it's called the Kumbhaka; we rest in between the breaths trying to find that stillness that point where we can float and relax on the breath.

How to Rest Between Breaths Video

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