Richard Rosen - The Yoga of Breath: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama

Richard Rosens new book The Yoga of Breath is a welcome addition to the few pranayama literature issued in the past decade or so; it will help dedicated yogis keep their spiritual instruments properly strung and finely tuned.

Yoga Journal

Richard Rosen has written a beautiful and substantial work on pranayama. It is at once modern and classical. Brilliantly engaging and accessible, it is a guide to practice that can become a companion for life. I recommend it unequivocally to students and teachers alike.

Patricia Walden, cofounder of the B. K. S. Iyengar Yoga Studio

Pranayama is a vitally important part of traditional Hatha-Yoga. Richard Rosen has rendered a most valuable yeoman service by making this widely neglected practice accessible to Western practitioners. I highly recommend this work.

George Feuerstein, Ph.D., author of The Shambhala Guide to Yoga

Richard Rosen acts as our pranayama tour guide by honestly sharing his own travels, both inward and outward. And he has done it the way all great teachers do: He points to the map and then makes sure we go on our own journey and don't just keep looking at his finger. The Yoga of Breath shows us how to find time, how to work with our mind, cultivate patience, experience more spaciousness, and be playfulall that by breathing in and breathing out. I'm inspired!

Cyndi Lee, director of the Om Yoga Center

ABOUT THE BOOK

For several thousand years, yogis have drawn on the powerful practice of pranayama, a technique of controlling the breath to maximize prana or life energy. Pranayama has been practiced to rejuvenate the body and as a means of self-study and self-transformation. While most yoga practitioners today focus on asanas, or body postures, a growing number of people are learning the complementary practice of pranayama to deepen and enrich their practice.

The Yoga of Breath is a guide to learning the fundamentals of pranayama and incorporating them into an existing yoga practice. Rosens approach is easy to follow with step-by-step descriptions of breath and body awareness exercises accompanied by clear illustrations. The book also covers the history and philosophy of pranayama, offers useful practice tips, and teaches readers how to use props to enhance the exercises.

RICHARD ROSEN is a graduate of the Iyengar Institute of San Francisco and has been teaching yoga since 1987. He is a contributing editor at Yoga Journal magazine and director of and one of the principal teachers at the Piedmont Yoga Studio (cofounded by Rodney Yee), in Oakland, California. Many of Rosens practice instructions and technical teachings are posted on the Piedmont Yoga Studio website, www.piedmontyoga.com.

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THE YOGA OF

BREATH

A Step-by-Step Guide to Pranayama

RICHARD ROSEN

Foreword by Rodney Yee

Illustrations by Kim Fraley

SHAMBHALA

Boston & London

2011

To: Laura and Taleen

We know that it is the search that gives meaning to any find and that one often has to travel a long way in order to arrive at what is near.

Jos Saramago, All the Names

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Horticultural Hall

300 Massachusetts Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02115

www.shambhala.com

2002 by Richard Rosen

Cover design by Jim Zaccaria

Cover photograph by Laura Shekerjian

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rosen, Richard.

The yoga of breath: a step-by-step guide to Pranayama / Richard Rosen; foreword by Rodney Yee.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN 978-0-8348-2578-9

ISBN 978-1-57062-889-4

1. Breathing exercises. 2. Yoga, Hatha. I. Title.

RA781.7.R665 2002

613.7046dc21

2002017657

A COOL BREEZE on the sweat of your brow on a hot summer daythats how I feel every morning when I take my first sips of conscious air. At this point it takes very little time for this feeling to drop me into a place of delight and wonder. When did these observations of my breath become such a consoling friend? For as I tell my students and friends, it is my pranayama practice, not my asana or meditation practice, that is most precious to me. Every day for the last fifteen years, I have started my day with pranayama. I reserve time for my pranayama practice in the morning no matter where I am or what Im doingwhether Im on an airplane or my kids are running in and out of the roomto completely detach from my surroundings and go inward. I look forward to it more than I look forward to a good nights sleep. It is both a great solace and a wonderful way to understand who I am today before I enter into relationship with the outside world.

Can I recall the first time I folded a bolster and lay down under the meticulous instructions of my yoga teacher? I was wondering why the teacher was being so fussy. I was wondering why the blanket had to be so neat and my body so symmetrical. I felt as if I were being called to some secret order and blindfolded as I was being led to the sanctuary. And when I actually began going into the realm of the breath, my mind didnt have the steadiness that was required to notice any of the subtleties of my breath. But I still had miraculous effects now and again, which were enough to lead me on. I remember ending up in some states of mind of ethereal peace and states of my body of infinite space that seemed as if they were from a different galaxy.

Then one day my pranayama teacher looked me in the eyes and saidnot with sternness but in a matter-of-fact toneEither take this practice on daily or let it go. So at that point I began my daily practice of pranayama, due partly to my trust of my teacher and partly to a personal intuition that told me this was a vital practice for me. With each ensuing year my fondness of the practice has deepened because it is so enticing to be led by my breath instead of my mind, for at least part of my day. And because I found pranayama so useful for my own daily life, I began to teach it weekly at my studio, wanting to share this practice with my students and colleagues.

All that time, right next to me, day after day, my friend Richard Rosen was also wrestling with this practice. During those early days we were commuting back and forth to yoga class, then having lunch together and discussing asana, pranayama, and everything else under the sun. For both of us the asana practice was extremely difficult. We were both very tight and emotionally frustrated with this tightness. We practiced two or three times a week together, devising ways to penetrate our thick, tight, immovable bodies. We stepped on each other, pushed each other, and joked about our difficulties. Richard was as much in love with the practice as I was, and just as tenacious. However, our guylike approach to the asanas was beginning to crack from our constant work trying to uncover the subtleties of our breath. We would lie down next to each otherone of us invariably falling asleeptrying to adhere our minds to our breath. And although I could never really know all the feelings, thoughts, and physical sensations that he experienced, somehow I knew we were both absorbing the same divine fragrance. After pranayama something about the changes in his eyes and his skin were the signs that we had ended up in a similar place, although we had traveled through different terrain to get there. (Sometimes I can go into a room full of yogis and know who in that room is practicing pranayama because of their relaxed tone of voice and the light inside their eyes.)