Breathing and Rolfing (part 1)
I was attending a new yoga class in Sacramento recently. Everything was going well enough I could feel the transitions from one asana to the next at the same time my spine being supported from my pelvic floor to the top of my ribs. In Vinyasa style yoga the breath regulates the flow of one position to the next. Good stuff. I highly recommend. We came to a point where everyone in the room was on their hands and knees arcing the spine toward the ceiling and then taking the head and tail up as the spine goes toward the floor. This is known as cat/cow positions. I have to tell you though that the teacher was doing something that was driving me a little crazy. He was telling us to breathe in as our spines went skyward (spinal flexion) and out as they went down (spinal extension). This is not a good practice. There is a phenomenon called paradoxical breathing which means the person is physically reversing the normal breathing process and pulling in the upper abdominal muscles on the in breath and push their belly out on the exhale. This way of breathing, in short, requires a much higher energy cost and usually results in back pain, hyperventilation, and mouth breathing to name a few. Now if we make the simple adjustment of arching the spine to the ceiling (pushing the hands into the floor) and exhaling this makes more sense. When the natural breath comes to inhale we do the reverse; head and tail up, mid-spine down. Fill the lungs with air. We are now making the natural motion that the body should do for each phase of respiration.
When the spine is flexed (bent forward) it decreases the volume of the respiratory cavity. In other words it assists in clearing out spent air in the lungs. When it extends the volume of the lungs expand and the diaphragm pulls downward helping to create negative pressure to fill the lungs with fresh air.
Breath is a very common focal point in Rolfing because of how helpful proper breath function can be in terms of structural health and back pain but also because of the wholistic impact of giving your body the adequate amount of fresh air it needs to feed your muscles and brain. In the next few articles I will be exploring some other ideas around breath function and how we can improve upon this overlooked but critical process.