I remember my first couple of days in India this past July.
Jet lag had not yet worn off and I walked around in a daze of sorts. Fighting to stay awake in the middle of the day, gulping down lots of chai for the caffeine and falling asleep around 9pm, only to rouse, wide awake at 2am.
It was about 2am my third or second morning there that I crawled from my flat Indian bed onto my sticky mat to practice something close to pranayama. The apartment actually had a couple of bolsters that worked great for laying over and opening the chest. I remember very clearly my first Indian Ujjayi of that trip. As I inhaled to expand my chest and rib cage, I felt 20+ hours of airplane stiffness smooth away. As I exhaled I felt the anxiety and panic that comes from being in a crazy place and having an irregular sleep pattern transform into calm, content acceptance.
I remember being so grateful that this art of pranayama exists, so grateful that somewhere along the line, my teachers actually looked at me and then decided to teach it to me anyway, regardless of my jackassness.
It's a simple thing, taking a smooth breath with awareness, but it can have such a profound effect.
Pranayama was not always like that for me. For the first 3 years of my Iyengar practice, my pranayama practice usually turned into nap time. Even in classes, with a firm resolve to stay awake, my own small snores would often wake me. But, like anything, if you practice and keep an open mind, you can find a way to make it work. Once I stopped falling asleep and actually stayed awake, I found it annoying, frustrating, sometimes even maddening. Tension would push from the inside of me, feeling like I was going to boil over and explode into a Kquvien mess. I would become frightened and panic.
Should I get up and run around? Maybe I should just start coughing, or fake a sneezing fit. What should I do? Where should I go?
Luckily, the asana practice that was instilled in me kicked in.
Certainly, before I get up and start running around the room, I should just lift my chest. Wow. That was a great idea, so great in fact, that I should do it again. Oh, as my awareness to lift my chest is awakening, I would realize that I was gripping my jaw muscles, okay, no problem, exhale, relax those muscles. As I continued with the physical adjustments, I would lose the anxiety, lose the feeling of needing to dash around, waving my arms and screaming. Somewhere in all of that I felt every now and then, the lovely result of an invigorating inhale and the calming touch of letting the body and mind soften with an exhale.
I never would have been able to do it without the lessons my asana practice taught me.
I can honestly say that it took me 10 years of Iyengar yoga practice before I felt like I was actually doing pranayama.
