On Pranayama: The Essential Elements, John Schumacher

ON Pranayama The Essential Elements

BY JOHN SCHUMACHER

In the first issue of The Light, I wrote about “Laying the Foundation,” which postulated several conditions important for the practice of pranayama: a regular asana practice, a conducive lifestyle, and an inspiring teacher. I promised to speak about the importance of the teacher in this next article and to lay the groundwork for beginning to practice.

A knowledgeable teacher can save us a lot of time and struggle by guiding us away from the numerous pitfalls that pepper our path and toward the light of yoga. We Iyengar students are all Guruji’s pupils, either directly or indirectly, so we know the value of the teacher.

We can, of course, study and practice asanas without a teacher. I practiced from the courses in the back of Light On Yoga (LOY) for five years before my first Iyengar Yoga class. I learned a lot on my own. I could drop back, drop over, put my feet behind my head, and stand on my hands. How little I actually knew, however, became evident in my first class with an Iyengar teacher. That class rocked me with a realization of the vastness of my ignorance and prompted me to study with Iyengar teachers whenever and wherever I could.

Pranayama is different.

Both asana and pranayama are exquisitely deep and profoundly subtle, and both involve the totality of our being—physical, emotional, mental, intellectual, and spiritual. The difference lies in the degree of depth and subtlety of pranayama as compared to asana. In pranayama, the clues to right action are trickier to catch, the effects more gradual and ethereal, the nuances more elusive.

I liken it to playing the flute. In playing the flute, you must learn how to hold the instrument and what fingers create what notes. You must learn where and how to place your lips to make a sound. All these details are important; without them you can’t play the instrument. Much refinement in these skills is possible and necessary. This is like asana. Without knowing how to position the body and how to adjust the various parts, you can’t do the asana. Once you can make a sound with the flute, the quality of your breath, your understanding of and feel for the music, and the depth of your emotions and consciousness determine the power and sweetness of the music. This is like pranayama.

You can certainly read Light On Pranayama (LOP) or some other book on the subject and begin to practice pranayama. Unlike my experience of learning asanas from LOY, however, by the time I read LOP, I had taken numerous pranayama classes with the Iyengars and senior teachers. The book contains remarkably extensive and subtle information, but in retrospect, without previous instruction, I would not have been able to understand much of it. I would have understood the words, but the experience they were meant to convey would have been a mystery. Knowing what sensations to look for and what to avoid, knowing what adjustments to make, that level of discrimination would have been missing. It’s a little like searching for a sequence for diabetes in Appendix II in the back of LOY. Try giving your diabetic student Akarna Dhanurasana or Mayurasana. However, the list of poses in the various therapeutic sequences contains clues as to ways to approach a particular issue. The experienced teacher will know how to use these clues and adjust them to the needs and capability of the student. LOP gives important clues about practicing pranayama, but an experienced teacher is necessary to translate those clues into meaningful and effective action. Just as the instructions in LOY about the asanas are basic, so the instructions in LOP are relatively bare bones. They describe the mechanics of pranayama. To bring the poetry of the practice to life, even the avid student of pranayama requires a teacher. It is the poetry of the practice that takes it from the mechanical to the sublime. The inspiring pranayama teacher must be, in

To bring the poetry of the practice to life, even the avid student of pranayama requires a teacher. It is the poetry of the practice that takes it from the mechanical to the sublime.

fact, a bit of a poet to convey the diaphanous beauty of the breath, to uncover the states of consciousness and levels of being at the heart of the practice. Guruji says, “As light radiates from the disc of the sun, so air is spread through the lungs.” Is this not poetry? And as the poet is inspired by the object of their poetry, so the pranayama teacher must be inspired by their own transformative experience of the dance of breath and consciousness. They can’t guide you to places they themselves have not experienced. To inspire, they must be inspired. It is interesting that the word inspiration derives from the Latin word inspirare, which means the act of taking in, specifically taking air into the lungs. It also means something or someone that moves our intellect or emotions.

The gradual pace of change and the subtlety of sensation in pranayama can leave the practitioner confused and unsure. It is sometimes hard to know whether you are on the right track or going astray. A teacher can answer the difficult questions and assuage the doubts that are sure to arise.

Alas, inspired/inspiring pranayama teachers are harder to find than inspired/inspiring asana teachers. Why? Because relative to asana practitioners, there are far fewer devoted pranayama practitioners. In pranayama workshops I have taught, I have asked teachers and serious students how many of them have a regular practice, which I leniently describe as at least five days a week. (Should be six or seven). Usually about 10–15% of them respond affirmatively. The interest, the commitment simply isn’t there. I wrote in the last article about what being ready for pranayama means. It takes time and devotion. Guruji said about pranayama, “You are a beginner for ten years.” I thought he was being hyperbolic to make a point, but after forty years of practice in this method, I don’t think so anymore. I became aware of a shift in my own practice after about ten years. Not that many people are willing to stay with the practice a sufficient amount of time to become comfortable with and attuned to the nuances that inform you as to the adjustments and refinements you need to make to move deeper into pranayama.

Feeling discouraged? That’s not my intention. And most students haven’t heard that, so that’s not what holds them back. It’s the stuff I talked about in the last piece, time being a major factor—and the fact that progress is so incremental. We are a plop-plop-fizz-fizz culture. We want what we want and we want it right away. Our attention spans have shriveled to being measured in seconds, not even minutes, let alone hours. Pranayama is a long-haul endeavor. Patience and persistence are essential. Thus, not very many stay with it long enough and consistently enough to penetrate the possibilities and acquire the skill to experience what Guruji calls the fragrance of pranayama.

So, yes, start however you can start—books or recordings—but seek out an experienced teacher with a steady practice, an inspiring teacher, as soon and as often as you can. And I urge those of you who have devoted yourself to the practice, to share your experience and your inspiration with whoever will come. There may be few and you won’t get rich, but you can plant the seeds of pranayama and help spread this amazing and powerful gift to an ever broader audience. We will all benefit.

After you have made the commitment to practice, in some ways, the first step to actually getting started is one of the most difficult. The first step is to relax, become quiet, and tune into your normal breath.

You can start your asana practice by walking into your practice space, then bend over, put your hands on the floor, and jump back into Adho Mukha Svanasana. That can be an appropriate and effective start. Boom! You’re on your way.

To practice pranayama, it’s not a good idea to get out of your car or leave your desk, come into your practice space, sit down, and right away begin Ujjayi or Viloma pranayamas. A state of relaxation, quietness, and receptivity is essential. Without those qualities, the practice will be irritating to the nervous system and disturbing to the mind.

A distinctive, and I think brilliant, aspect of Iyengar Yoga is to begin with reclining pranayamas. I practiced pranayama in several other traditions before taking up the Iyengar method. They launched into Bhastrika, Antara Kumbhaka, Visamavrtti and digital pranayamas right away. Apparently, this works for them; there is certainly

After you have made the commitment to practice, in some ways, the first step to actually getting started is one of the most difficult.

more than one way. (By the way, this is not to say that once you are an established experienced practitioner you cannot begin by sitting.) Perhaps because he struggled with it so much in the beginning, Guruji devised a much gentler and more gradual approach.

Once I started practicing reclining pranayama, I began to understand the importance of Savasana, especially as it relates to pranayama. As Guruji says, “It is not simply lying on one’s back with a vacant mind… It is the most difficult of asanas to perfect…as it involves stilling the body, the senses, and the mind while keeping the intellect alert.” Of course, one learns Savasana as a part of one’s asana practice. (Another example of the importance of learning asana before beginning pranayama. At Unity Woods, we required at least a year of practice of Iyengar asana to take the progressive Pranayama course.) As a result, the student new to pranayama can be comfortable in Savasana for more than a few minutes. Beginners in asana often become fidgety and restless after a couple of minutes of Savasana. It takes them a while to learn how to relax. Once the body relaxes, the breath softens, and the brain quietens, the practitioner can turn their attention to the passive movement of the breath.

Resting in Savasana gives you the opportunity to be aware of your breath on a different level altogether. Your breath is unique. Letting the breath come and go passively, observe the qualities, characteristics, sensations, movements, and rhythm of your breath. Get to know it, which takes time, just as getting to know another person takes time and attention.

This is a challenging way to begin. We want to DO things. But it is important to begin to understand the subtleties of the breath and to develop the sensitivity required to practice pranayama safely and effectively. Tuning in to your body and breath in this way lays the groundwork for the practice.

I have spoken about the importance of an inspiring teacher and laid the groundwork for beginning a pranayama practice. Because this issue of The Light centers on therapeutics, I was asked to touch on the therapeutic role of pranayama in a very general and peripheral way.

I mentioned in the last article that Guruji describes prana as “…the prime mover of all activity...” Thus pranayama, the direction and control of this energy, has powerful therapeutic potential. We speak of healing energy; that energy is prana. Guruji suggests various pranayamas for systemic (blood pressure, diabetes, etc.), respiratory, digestive, cardiovascular, and cognitive issues. He prescribes inhalation-focused pranayamas to stimulate the system (e.g., low blood pressure) and exhalation-focused pranayamas to soothe and relax the system (e.g., high blood pressure). Inhalations, Antara Kumbhaka (internal retention), dominant right nostril pranayamas are heating and stimulating; exhalations, Bahya Kumbhaka (external retention), and left nostril dominant pranayamas are cooling and relaxing.

These are sweeping generalizations and, as always, experience, skill, discernment, and discrimination are required to know when and how to utilize these qualities therapeutically. And, as with asana, the teacher cannot apply therapeutic pranayama interventions without having practiced and acquired extensive knowledge and understanding of the pranayamas and their effects.

In the next article, I will delve into some of the qualities of the breath and the mechanics and guideposts of reclining pranayama.

Resting in Savasana gives you the opportunity to be aware of your breath on a different level altogether. Your breath is unique.

John Schumacher(CIYT, Level 4) has practiced yoga for 50 years. He is the founder and Director of Unity Woods Yoga Center, serving the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area since 1979. For 33 years, he studied in India regularly with B.K.S. Iyengar, who personally certified him as an Advanced Junior I Iyengar Yoga Teacher.

John’s clear, precise style and his engaging sense of humor have made him one of America’s leading yoga teachers. In 2015, Yoga Journal awarded him its prestigious Good Karma Award for spending “40-plus years sharing[his] practice to help authenticate yoga in America today.”

John has written for a variety of publications. He has also appeared in numerous local and national media outlets across the U.S., speaking about the practice and benefits of yoga. He conducts classes and workshops for students and teachers all over the world.