more efficient, if done after cleansing the channels by asanas. Under-
standing these principles forms the idea that we can build a complex,
where asanas and pranayamas would take turns. For example, experi-
enced practitioners can be advised the following method of work with
problem zones and situations. Do a couple of asanas, working out the
chakra from the front, a couple of asanas working out the chakra from
the back, one asana to work the diagonal meridian, like described in
the chapter «First steps in hatha yoga». After that, do respiratory ex-
ercises, securing the corresponding effect at the needed chakra. Then
pass to another chakra.
148
Principles of building yoga complexes
Cumulative routines
Some exercises make the effect from each other much stronger,
if done in sequences. The effect can be even greater, if the sequence
is done several times. Here are some examples of cumulative routines:
«activation of lung cells» — Simhasana; yoga-mudra — Kapalabhati.
Accordance of asanas
and pranayamas
As mentioned above, pranayamas strengthen asanas effect, en-
ergizing the upbuilding that was made by them. On the other hand,
pranayama effect is more evident if they are performed after cleanhing
channels with asanas. Understanding of these principles brings forward
the idea of the possibility of building up complexes, where asanas and
pranayamas are «mixed» with each other. For example, for experienced
practitioners it is possible to recommend the following scheme of work-
ing with problematic areas and problematic situations. One or two asa-
nas are performed to work out the chakra from the front side; one or
two that work the chakra out from the back side; one, working it out
as described in chapter «First steps in Hatha-yoga». Next, breathing ex-
ercises are done to stabilize respective effect in respective chakra. Then
one can move on to the next chakra.
Accents in breathing
If doing a yoga complex you feel a need to nurture one of the
chakras, you can practice breathing on this chakra. Note that depending
on if we want to stimulate a chakra (pump it in) or «cleanse» it (take off
the excessive energy), we should focus on inhaling or on exhaling. Es-
pecially good results are done by accenting on inhaling or on exhaling
while doing such exercises as Kapalabhati and Bhastrika. Meditative
images that can be used to form breathing of different types, have to
do with the feeling of a «non-stop» filling of lungs or on the contrary,
emptying them. Just «occasionally» they are interrupted by the contrary
phase of breathing.
Accenting of the breathing on a chakra can be enhanced by the
practice of the articulated pronunciation of chakra-mantras. You can see
that this exercise is done right, if in FYB the needed chakra is heating.
149
ASANAS
WITH BREATH-HOLDS
(ADVANCED LEVEL)
How breath-holds
influence the body
Asanas accompanied with holding breath is the advanced level
technique, because breath-holds imply a good physical health and the
adequate self-analysis of your state. If a person practices breath-holds
having no strong cardio-vascular system, no healthy lungs etc. he can
once and for all «injure» his heart.
Breath-holds enhance the general effect of asana on the body,
first of all on the cardio-vascular system. Besides, holding breath af-
ter inhaling intensifies the energy moving up and raises the blood
pressure; while holding breath after exhaling intensifies the energy
going down and lowers the BP. Using this principle with the help of
breath-holds we can make energy move more intensively up or down,
of course, if asana is done correctly.
There are three types of breathing with holds: «inhaling», «exhal-
ing» and mixed.
«Inhaling» breath is done like this: inhale-hold-exhale. The
rhythm of inhaling, holding and exhaling should make it possible to
keep this breathing as long as you want, once you started it right — like
the rhythmic breathing. You should find a natural rhythm, correspond-
ing your physiological cycle, and then try to build it at this scheme.
Then you will be sure that you»ve chosen the right breathing, if you
can keep this rhythm for a long time, and after 5-6 breathings you don’t
need to catch your breath. To begin you should inhale and exhale as in
FYB, making a short hold in between, just for some seconds.
«Exhaling» breathing formula is exhale-hold-inhale. «Exhaling»
breath calms down, lowers the blood pressure and makes energy move
down.
150
Asanas with breath-holds (advanced level)
Coordination
of asanas
with breath-holds
Basing on principles how energy moves, we can understand how
to use these types of breathing in complexes. The effect of asanas, which
are entered with inhaling (i.e. anterior arching poses, making energy go
up, like Bhujangasana, Ushtrasana, Dhanurasana etc. ) is enhanced by a
«inhaling» breath in the asana.
On the contrary such asanas as yoga mudra, Pashimottanasana,
Padahastasana, Halasana are done with the «exhale» breathing, because
they naturally drive the energy downwards, so breathing like this, we
make this effect stronger.
So with the help of breath-holds we intensify energy’s movement
up or down.
ATTENTION! These techniques strongly influence the blood pressure, so,
if you have problems with it, you should be careful. If you already have
a high pressure, «inhaling» breath shouldn’t be done, likewise with the
low pressure you can’t practice the «exhaling» breath. The contrary is also
true — both breathings can be perfectly used as therapeutic techniques.
Breathing with holds, like all other respiratory exercises, should be
done in the individual rhythm, i.e. the ratio of inhale, exhale and hold
must be such, that the practitioner could keep the chosen rhythm for
quite a long time with no stress. Of course you can try to do like Indian
yoga books say and hold your breath for 40 seconds, but how many
respiratory cycles you can do before you want to catch your breath and
calm down your heart?
The breath-hold must be a micro-, not a macrostress, it mustn’t
make you lose your breath and «break» your heart work. Moreover the
breath relates to the psyche state, so, if the rhythm of the breath is lost,
the psychic state is also dispersed. That’s why breath-holds should be
harmonically interlaced in the natural breathing rhythm. Note that all
these breathings are stressing. If you feel that you cardio-vascular sys-
tem doesn’t cope with it, you are tired, your heart aches, «the ham-
mers» beat in your head, it aches too, all this means that you still have
to be careful with these types of breathing.
Doing asanas with breath-holds, you must know when to stop.
You should not stress neither inhaling, nor exhaling. Your state must be
calm. You mustn’t strain your jaws, hands, abdominal muscles etc. (as
it often happens due to the pathogenic arches).
151
. Safronov. Yoga: Physiology, Psychosomatics, Bioenergetics
The breath is hold by the muscles of larynx, so there is actually no
need to strain your hands.
Holding your breath after inhaling, you should keep your chest
open. Your chest must be open as wide as possible by your inhaling
muscles as if you continued inhaling. Then the pressure of lungs on
the heart is minimal, and it can beat with the maximum amplitude.
Otherwise the heartbeat amplitude shrinks and your heart starts beat-
ing faster.
Make sure you keep the same rhythm of breath with holdings
for at least one exercise (ideally — during the entire complex). It is
important to form a certain well-defined ratio of oxygen and carbonic
acid concentration in blood (see the chapter «Types of yoga exercises.
Their mechanisms of influence»), which is maintained by a rhythm of
breath-holds. The practitioner’s task is to achieve a specific state by
well-defined ratio of breath-holds. If the time of breath-holds changes,
his state «loosens» too.
The capacity to breathe with holds strongly depends on person’s
vegetative tone. Those who find it difficult to exert themselves (with
dominating parasympathetic system) easily do exhaling holds; while
those who find it difficult to relax (with dominating sympathetic sys-
tem) do well inhaling holds. As everywhere, in yoga works the prin-
ciple of compensation: you should master the technique, which you do
worse. I.e. people with the ratio of vegetative tone more than 1 (a state
when a person is always toned), should learn to make a longer hold on
exhale, while those who are constantly relaxed should make a longer
hold on exhaling.
You must find your natural and physiological breathing rhythm,
in which you can breathe during the entire complex, keeping the
same emotional state.
In extreme case you can do an asana on one breathing cycle, en-
tering it and exiting on the first and the one inhalation or exhalation,
and to stay in the pose at a breath-hold. Some schools teach this meth-
od as the basic. This method is really very effective on conditions that
you have a very good health and very clean channels. The last condi-
tion is crucial for the following reasons. The energy effect from asana is
received, if the energy had time to pass the open channel. The time of
passing differs for everyone, depending, as it was already said, on the
cleanness of the channel, varying from some minutes to some seconds.
If the channel is clogged and the breath-hold is short, it can be just not
enough, and asana will become useless.
Besides you should remember that stability of your conscious-
ness in doing the complex ( dharana) directly depends on keeping one
rhythm of breathing during the whole complex. That’s why it makes
152
Asanas with breath-holds (advanced level)
sense to practice this technique only after you’re sure that you can do
all the planned asanas.
In the morning1 it makes sense to accent on the inhaling breath-
ing. You can prolong anterior stretching poses to tone yourself up, and
in the evening (if you want to avoid a sleepless night, wanting to sleep
well) concentrate on the exhale breathing.
Dynamic complexes
with breath-holds
(by the example
of Suria Namaskar)
Suria and Chandra Namaskar as other dynamic complexes can be
done with breath-holds. This helps to get the faster effect from the com-
plex, making yoga session faster in general. The principle of accordance
of asanas and types of breathing is the same as in static complexes. The
chosen breath must enhance the natural effect from asana. The only dif-
ference is that exiting one pose we enter another and we do it with the
same inhalation or exhalation.
Namaste — rhythmical breathing, hasta uttanasana (pose with ris-
en hands) — inhaling breath, padahastasana — exhaling breath, ashva
sanchalanasana (one leg lunge ahead) — inhaling breath, parvatasana
(forward set) — inhaling again, Ashtanga Namaskar (zigzagging) — ex-
haling, «dog» — inhaling, «cat» — exhaling etc. Ideally each pose can
be done at one single breath-hold, but only if it’s enough to open the
needed channel to the full.
1 Here we mean the individual biological morning, which comes for everyone in his time.
For example, for «night owls» it comes later than for «morning larks». Before the individual
morning it’s better not to practice at all.
153
WORK WITH ENERGY
TECHNIQUES
Work with energy
through breathing
Practice of work with energy in hatha yoga can be divided into
some stages.
At the first level a person works with the energy, which is already
present in him, i.e. driving energy from one zone to another. Usually
for the first level this energy is enough, because a certain amount of it is
held in muscle contractions. In fact we liberate the energy from contrac-
tions and muscle blocks, redistributing it more adequately.
If the reader has practiced the described methods with certain regu-
larity, he might have noticed that eventually we get used to them — both
physically and energetically. In other words asanas that used to make the
heat rise and were causing other physiological sensing of energy moving,
don’t make the same effect anymore. It is explained not only by adapta-
tion. Those «stocks» of energy, which were kept in muscles, which were
used at the beginning are just already redistributed in the body. It be-
comes more flexible, has less blocks. It’s great, but to continue practicing
you should come to the next level — getting the energy from outside.
I don’t recommend beginners to work with visualisation of ener-
gy, because this method is quite difficult and can play some dirty tricks.
There are other, simpler, but still very efficient methods to gather en-
ergy from the world around you.
The first source of energy you can work with is the air. There
is an interesting rule, which was already mentioned: we gather energy
by those parts, by which we «listen» to our physical feelings. This
rule can be easily demonstrated by a simple test. Put your hands one
in front of another. «Listen» by your right hand, like the heat is coming
from the left hand. After a while your right hand will become warmer
and the left one colder. Change the direction of feeling: start «listening»
154
Work with energy techniques
by your left hand for the heat coming from the right one. The right
hand will cool and the left start warming. It happens for the said rea-
son: the hand, on which you concentrate, takes the energy — in this
case from your other hand. Actually concentration on sensations is ab-
sorbing the etheric energy.
If we want to take some energy from the air, we must «listen» to
the sensation of the air inside or outside ourselves, feel it well.
If we want to gather some energy to a certain chakra, or on the con-
trary take off some excessive energy from it, we must listen to the feeling
of the air at a level of this chakra. If you want to «pump» a channel, you
must listen to the feeling of the air at the level of this channel.
This principle is true for all senses. One School has an exercise of
eating an orange: you have to eat it very-very slowly, to contemplate
it, to sniff it, to touch it, then you slowly cut it, feeling essential oils
evaporate, then you eat it, sensing every hue of its taste. As a result a
person is full with just one orange, because he absorbs a lot of orange’s
etheric field. If you eat it quickly, you mostly devour its physical body,
ignoring the etheric one.
Every sensory canal relates to a certain chakra and brings energy
mostly to it.
The same happens when you work with the etheric energy of the
air: breathing without awareness you mostly consume oxygen. If you
concentrate on the air passing, you take the prana from the air.
There are two basic respiratory exercises you can practice alone or
together with the basic complex of exercises to make them more effec-
tive. The first one is called «Breathing up chakras». It has for a goal to
pump up chakras with the energy of the air.
«Breathing up» chakras
The technique is to pay attention to the air passing each re-
spiratory zone: nasopharynx, larynx, thorax, solar plexus, belly. It’s
obvious, that each zone relates to a chakra — from Vishuddha to
Svadhisthana. Sahasrara and Muladhara aren’t nourished by breath-
ing, because sahasrara nourishes by the Cosmic energy and Mulad-
hara — by earth energy. On every chakra it’s recommended to do
3–4 breathings.
The better you listen to these sensations, the more energy you
take from the air.
Notice that the feeling of the air passing can vary. Some people
feel the air pressing, its tickling, coolness or warmth, the smell, the sound
of the moving air. Accenting on various sensations, we take from the air
155
. Safronov. Yoga: Physiology, Psychosomatics, Bioenergetics
different types of energy. This is the clue to understanding how chakras
relate to different sense bodies, which was described in old treatises
with no further explanations.
According to Indian sources, Muladhara relates to the smell, Sva-
dhisthana — to the taste, Manipura — to the vision, Anahata to the
touch, Vishuddha to the hearing. I suppose that this relation is not ab-
solutely correct, there are some mistakes in texts or in their interpreta-
tions. Indeed Muladhara (our physical body) nourishes mostly by food,
and in this way more likely corresponds to our taste senses. On the oth-
er hand, almost for all plants, animals and people, of course, the erotic
sense is carried by the smell. That’s why I think that Muladhara relates
to the taste, and Svadhisthana — to the smell.
Applying this pattern of correspondences on the technique of «tak-
ing» the energy from the air, we can say that concentrating on the air’s
density, we feed our body by the scope of energies close to Muladhara
ones, on its smell — we feed Svadhisthana, its temperature (the feeling
of warmth) — Manipura, tickling in airways — Anahata, the sound of it
passing — Vishuddha.
At the advanced level you should learn to concentrate on the
sense, you choose in advance — it trains our sense bodies, our concen-
tration, and bring up to the development of siddhas. On the beginners
level it’s better to focus on those senses, which are easier to get.
«Breathing up» chakra we can pump it up or cleanse it. Chakra
is pumped up, when the accent is done on the air breathed in. Chakra
is cleansed when the accent is done on the air leaving our body on the
exhalation. These exercises can be done separately or together.
«Breathing up» channels
Energy from the air can be taken not only at the level of certain
chakras, but long all the energy meridians. Especially it’s useful to en-
ergise active meridians, that’s why it makes sense to do this technique
together with asanas.
In all anterior-stretching asanas — Bhujangasana, Dhanurasana,
Ushtrasana and so on the accent should be done on the air passing
through the anterior-middle channel, i.e. you have to «listen» how the
air is passing through the anterior part of your lungs.
In posterior-stretching asanas like yoga-mudra, Pashimottanasa-
na, padahastasana, — you should feel the air pass the posterior part of
your lungs.
At the advanced level you can coordinate this breathing with
the phases of asana. In this case when you enter asana, you can con-
156
Work with energy techniques
centrate on your feelings, then the point of energy gathering will
move together with the point separating the stretched part of merid-
ian from the part, still not activated («the stretching point»). When
the energy is passing in the static (main) part of asana, the point of
gathering is where the energy is naturally passing. For example, in
Bhujangasana when the heat passes up the spine, you should con-
centrate on the air passing the posterior part of your lungs, when
you are exhaling, if possible, by the same zone, where you feel the
heat passing. Such practice teaches us how to move the heat in our
body, i.e. to control the energy in our body without doing asanas —
just by the conscious effort.
In pivoted asanas like Trikonasana, Arthamatsiendrasana, sarpas-
ana — first of all you must feel the air pass in the stretched lung (feel
that you breathe with one lung). And after the energy has passed — in
the squeezed one at the exhalation.
«Breathing up»
in pranayamas
Similar clues can be used in pranayamas. For example, when you
do anuloma-viloma, breathing in by your right nostril, you should feel
the air pass through your right lung as if you where filling by the air
only this lung. Exhaling by your left nostril, feel the air leave by the left
lung.
In Kapalabhati you should control the air passing in the nasophar-
ynx, front and maxillary sinuses. In Bhastrika you should clearly feel
the air in the Manipura zone.
Notice, that problem zones are more difficult to «breathe up». Like
in doing asanas unconsciously we try to skip these zones. At the level
of depressed or weakened chakras it’s more difficult to feel the air pass,
although this is what you need to stabilise them. On the contrary, feel-
ings in excited chakras can be too bright, so you need to ignore them.
Work with energy
by visualisation
Visualisation is the most advanced technique of work with energy.
I warn beginners against using this practice in yoga, because visuali-
sation can be easily confused with imagining the energy, which gives
no results. The difference between working with the energy and imag-
ining it, is the same as dining or thinking that you dined.
157
. Safronov. Yoga: Physiology,