Éiriú-Eolas - Breathing Program

[abstract]

Well, just to check in here...the program with myself lately...i gotta be honest, there's no "weird" stuff happening at all. Athough,
I do feel more "balanced" again, i'm showing different emotions more often, and making an effort to consciously observe myself.

When I get mad, I am forced to ask myself why i got mad in the first place, i question myself constantly. "is this okay, does this seem right?"
If i start to dwell on past things that begin to make me sad, I ask myslef, "the past is not now, is there any reason to dwell on this for a second longer at all?"
At that point, when i catch myself, i have trained my mind to say "do not forget your power...pay no attention to those that belittle you, they are machines, they are asleep, they have no understanding of the world we live in."
and i try to remind myself of this quote from the C's...i couldn't possibly forget it, ever. (emphasis is mine)

"There are those who believe the world exist for them to shut out, overcome, or ignore. For them the worlds will cease, they will become exactly what they give to life, a dream in the "past. Those who pay strict attention
to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "future."

This quote really helps me whenever i start to mourn the loss of my illusions, it is almost as effective for me as POTS. For me, it's constant reminder that I am working towards something which is greater than any of us,
that all this work is "for something."

 

[shijing]

Hi abstract --

Well, just to check in here...the program with myself lately...i gotta be honest, there's no "weird" stuff happening at all.

If you're worried about that, don't be -- with a couple of isolated exceptions (and even those weren't really that exceptional), I never experience any weird stuff either, and I've been doing it since summer. I am hungry afterward more often than not, but otherwise I just look forward to it as a time to relax if I can work out a time to do it when I'm not under too much time pressure. At the very least I usually feel somewhat refreshed and more relaxed afterward, both mentally and physically.

"There are those who believe the world exist for them to shut out, overcome, or ignore. For them the worlds will cease, they will become exactly what they give to life, a dream in the "past. Those who pay strict attention to objective reality right and left, become the reality of the "future."

I really like that quote too -- I think its simultaneously both inspirational and haunting. And as you say, it is definitely motivating!

 

[aragorn]

I have a question regarding the Beathea Energetic portion of the breathing. During the inhale are we attempting to take a full inhale as well as a complete emptying upon exhale? Next when the process speeds up are we continuing to take a full inhale in the shortened time span or are we truncating a normal breath?

What Laura says in the intro before beginning the BE breathing is to breath in until she finishes saying Baaa, and do the same with the Haa portion as well. I don't think a "full inhale" is a requirement.

My understanding is that we should breath in for as long as we can until she starts saying Haaa, then breath out until she starts saying Baaa again. Thus, there are no pauses nor holding the breath between in and out, which is why it is called round breathing. If I'm mistaken on this someone please correct me.

I second Windmill knight on this. I feel that it's important to keep the breath going "round" in a smooth manner - like a sine wave. Trying to succeed in taking a full cup of air every time is in my experience counterproductive. In time when you have less tensions you WILL BE able to breath with more capacity without extra effort. I would like to stress the importance of the exhale:

- The process will work with considerable more efficiency if you concentrate on LETTING GO and GIVING UP with every cycle of exhaling. Feel the ribcage and chest COLLAPSING every time you breathe out. This will help you let go of tensions which in turn will free up your breathing and making it easier and easier. Once you reach, maybe momentarely, a completely relaxed breathing function (probably easier to achieve while lying down) you will KNOW that breathing with full capacity is effortless, fluid and absolutely wonderful!

The beatha at faster pace is a bit more problematic. Now, I hope that you guys don't see this as an attempt of tweaking the EE, but I have learned a couple of things that helps keeping the breathing smoother at the faster pace. Some sources tell to keep the throat and mouth as wide open as possible, but at the fast pace I personally feel that some adjustment is beneficial. So, this is no "official" advice, just my experience with breathing sessions with my bioenergetics teacher:

- Try to adjust the opening of the mouth smaller. You can try forming your lips into "kuss mund"(German), that is like you would kiss someone. Or just closing the jaw a bit making the mouth opening smaller. Let the lip posture loose (passive) and mouth hang loose (letting go) when exhaling. With some "trimming" of the mouth opening you will find what suits you best. I experience that a slightly narrower passage makes the fast breathing go more deeper and it fills up the lungs faster. Keeping the mouth too open will also increase the feeling of hyperventilation, which probably isn't desirable.

- If you feel tension in the throat you could try breathing with your tongue sticking out (at different directions also) and see what happens. The tongue is one big muscle and it can have a lot of tensions!

In breathing sessions with my teacher he sometimes makes me suck the air in as you would drink with a straw, with the lips in different postures. One interesting thing is that he directs this breathing by doing it himself most of the time, while I have my eyes closed. He says that he must breath WITH ME in order to better feel what's going on in me. I believe we all feel it in our own breathing if someone around us is very stressed and has an emergency like breathing pattern.

Edit: Made it more clear (hopefully) that this is just based on my experience and shouldn't be taken as official EE guidance

 

[Mountain Crown]

In breathing sessions with my teacher he sometimes makes me suck the air in as you would drink with a straw, with the lips in different postures.

Aragorn, this reads as inhaling through the mouth. Have I been doing it wrong?

I took for granted the inhale was through the nose because of Laura saying one can't really say "Baah" while inhaling. You can however, if you inhale through the mouth.

 

[aragorn]

In breathing sessions with my teacher he sometimes makes me suck the air in as you would drink with a straw, with the lips in different postures.

Aragorn, this reads as inhaling through the mouth. Have I been doing it wrong?

I took for granted the inhale was through the nose because of Laura saying one can't really say "Baah" while inhaling. You can however, if you inhale through the mouth.

Eureka! I think you've found an answer to your problem. As far as I know, the beatha (and round/Bioenergetic breathing) is always done through the mouth, both inhale and exhale.

 

[Human]

In breathing sessions with my teacher he sometimes makes me suck the air in as you would drink with a straw, with the lips in different postures.

Aragorn, this reads as inhaling through the mouth. Have I been doing it wrong?

I took for granted the inhale was through the nose because of Laura saying one can't really say "Baah" while inhaling. You can however, if you inhale through the mouth.

I got the same impression about this. So, I checked in EE Guide/FAQ:

15. QUESTION:I noticed that after the warriors breath and during some of the Ba-Ha, the nostrils got very dry and became sensitive so that I couldn't take in as much air on the inhale as I wanted to. Any advice?
ANSWER:You may want to try concentrating your inhalation from the throat & diaphram rather than the nostril. It allows for much smoother and deeper inhalation in my experience. In other words, when breathing in through the nose, draw the breath in from the throat and diaphram letting the air gently come through the nostrils into the nose but the emphasis of the inhalation comes from throat and diaphram.

The right way is to inhale through the nose.

 

[aragorn]

In breathing sessions with my teacher he sometimes makes me suck the air in as you would drink with a straw, with the lips in different postures.

Aragorn, this reads as inhaling through the mouth. Have I been doing it wrong?

I took for granted the inhale was through the nose because of Laura saying one can't really say "Baah" while inhaling. You can however, if you inhale through the mouth.

I got the same impression about this. So, I checked in EE Guide/FAQ:

15. QUESTION:I noticed that after the warriors breath and during some of the Ba-Ha, the nostrils got very dry and became sensitive so that I couldn't take in as much air on the inhale as I wanted to. Any advice?
ANSWER:You may want to try concentrating your inhalation from the throat & diaphram rather than the nostril. It allows for much smoother and deeper inhalation in my experience. In other words, when breathing in through the nose, draw the breath in from the throat and diaphram letting the air gently come through the nostrils into the nose but the emphasis of the inhalation comes from throat and diaphram.

The right way is to inhale through the nose.

How good that this came up! I could be wrong of course, but I believe that the answer above is addressing breathing through the nostrils more generally speaking. It sure gives the impression that, since the Ba-Ha is mentioned in the question, that breathing through the nose should be used also in that section of the program. However if you listen to Laura on the audio you can hear her demonstrating the ba-ha, breathing in through the mouth. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, this should really be sorted out!

Added: BTW the word 'diaphragm' is misspelled in the FAQ

 

[Mountain Crown]

this should really be sorted out!

Yes, very important I would think.

 

[Human]

this should really be sorted out!

Yes, very important I would think.

I totally agree.
Since the very beginning of practicing EE I had doubts about how to inhale and how to exhale. After listening to audio and watching the video few more times I came to conclusion that during the whole EE program we should inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. It's the main difference in comparison to most of the yoga exercises, where you both inhale and exhale through the mouth.
But, I could easily be wrong on this. ;)

 

[Biomiast]

this should really be sorted out!

Yes, very important I would think.

Laura says in through the nose, out through the mouth at the beginning of 27th minute of video program for Beatha breathing, fwiw.

From the Eiri Eolas transcripts:

And we are just demonstrating this here, because once again this is going to be on the audio portion, I am going to take you through a rather lengthy period of this round bio energetic breathing, so here you just see the fact that the girls are just sitting and they are doing the bio energetic breathing, they are hearing me saying to them BA and they breath in and then HA and they breath out, and it’s also helpful when you breath out yourself if you feel like it, only if you feel like it. Also say a very gentle HAAAA, as you exhale, because when you say this HAAAA, it constricts the upper pharyngeal(26:52) passage and it gives you a little pipe breathing, okay?


Because in general you are not doing pipe breathing in this exercise, this is normal breathing, you are just breathing deeply trough the nose and out through the mouth, but if you say HA, very gently, I mean no even loud enough to make really much of a sound, then you will be giving a little bit of constriction during the exhalation to the ferengio passage and that will give extra stimulus to the vagus nerve so, as soon as we finish the bio-energetic breathing or the round breathing, the BA-HA portion, of the program then you want to go right from there to lying down and getting ready for the meditative portion, okay so you want to have a cushion nearby for your head and maybe a light blanked to put over you, because when you go into deep meditation, you tend to get a little bit chilled, and you want to be warm.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12985.0

 

[vinny]

After listening to audio and watching the video few more times I came to conclusion that during the whole EE program we should inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth.

yup, that is correct.

 

[aragorn]

this should really be sorted out!

Yes, very important I would think.

Laura says in through the nose, out through the mouth at the beginning of 27th minute of video program for Beatha breathing, fwiw.

From the Eiri Eolas transcripts:

And we are just demonstrating this here, because once again this is going to be on the audio portion, I am going to take you through a rather lengthy period of this round bio energetic breathing, so here you just see the fact that the girls are just sitting and they are doing the bio energetic breathing, they are hearing me saying to them BA and they breath in and then HA and they breath out, and it’s also helpful when you breath out yourself if you feel like it, only if you feel like it. Also say a very gentle HAAAA, as you exhale, because when you say this HAAAA, it constricts the upper pharyngeal(26:52) passage and it gives you a little pipe breathing, okay?


Because in general you are not doing pipe breathing in this exercise, this is normal breathing, you are just breathing deeply trough the nose and out through the mouth, but if you say HA, very gently, I mean no even loud enough to make really much of a sound, then you will be giving a little bit of constriction during the exhalation to the ferengio passage and that will give extra stimulus to the vagus nerve so, as soon as we finish the bio-energetic breathing or the round breathing, the BA-HA portion, of the program then you want to go right from there to lying down and getting ready for the meditative portion, okay so you want to have a cushion nearby for your head and maybe a light blanked to put over you, because when you go into deep meditation, you tend to get a little bit chilled, and you want to be warm.

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=12985.0

Thanks you're right! My mistake, sorry to confuse things. It seems that I constantly try to apply Bioenergetic principles that I've learned elsewhere to the EE-program (which is not the same), I'm sorry for doing that!

 

[aragorn]

I just looked up in two books I have on the subject. One is by a Finnish pioneer in Bionergetics, Meri Lehtinen, who studied extensively Reichian Therapy & Bioenergetics in the States in the 60's & 70's and the other one is by Alexander Lowen called 'The Way to Vibrant Health'.

Both authors give examples of breathing exercises including the "round" breathing. In every case they talk about breathing in and out through the mouth. So maybe the Beatha breathing shouldn't be called Bioenergetic breathing, because according to Reich, Lowen and this Lehtinen the inhale is done through the mouth.

 

[anart]

After listening to audio and watching the video few more times I came to conclusion that during the whole EE program we should inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth.

yup, that is correct.

Aragorn - just to clarify for those reading this thread (because at this point even I was starting to get confused) - the EE program breathing is ALL 'in through the nose and out through the mouth'.

Perhaps you could work on not trying to confuse the EE breathing program with your other experiences (and possibly leading others astray in the process)?

 

[Alana]

Aragorn - just to clarify for those reading this thread (because at this point even I was starting to get confused) - the EE program breathing is ALL 'in through the nose and out through the mouth'.

That's how i understood it and practiced it myself. And just to be 110% sure, it's 'in through the nose and out through the mouth' for pipe breathing, warrior breath and BaHa. But during the meditation is normal "in through the nose, out through the nose" breathing. Correct?