Breath as Bellwether

In yoga, the poses get all the attention. They can be really flashy or downright impressive. There are probably a lot of people that work very hard just to get into those shapes with limited regard to, well, anything else.

But our physical practice is a way to challenge us to keep a nourishing, fine, steady, rhythmic breath. We inhale and exhale every day, all day. Of COURSE we breathe through our practice, right? Have you ever found yourself gasping for air while you practice? Or your breath is a sort of unsteady, reedy thread? What if you looked at the way you breathe as the bellwether of your practice?

What exactly is a bellwether? The word comes from the practice of placing a bell around the neck of the wether, or castrated male sheep, in a flock. The wether is the sheep that the others follow, so having a bell on that sheep made it easy for the shepherd to find his flock at night or in bad (ahem) weather. Nowadays, there aren't so many shepherds out there, but the word is used to describe an indicator of a trend. So the way the stock market moves, for example, might be considered a bellwether of the economy.

In the case of our practice, we can sometimes get caught up in the physical poses to the exclusion of everything else. But if we focus on the breath as our bellwether, it can really teach us about how we approach our asanas. If we do, in fact, find ourselves gasping through our practice, it should be an indication that we are trying too hard to reach a pose, or we are moving too fast for our body. Similarly, if we find our breath to be shallow or disorganized, that might tell us that we're not bringing focus to our practice. The breath can tell us a ton about our physical practice.

This is not to say that we shouldn't challenge ourselves. On the contrary, our challenge should be to see what we can do while still keeping that nourishing and steady breath happening. And when we notice that our breath has become disorganized in some way, we can come back to it and adjust our physical practice so that we are getting enough but not too much.

Our breath will always tell us, if we choose to listen.