This session aims to build on your basic Pranayama experience. It adds a Viloma inhalation.
To start off, if you are feeling a little stiff or dull, mentally or physically, it can be useful to come into the body a moment before lying back for Pranayama.
Sit in Virasana, with a support under the buttocks. Interlock the fingers and raise the arms up, getting good length through the side of the chest, keeping the elbows straight.
Now extend the legs out into Dandasana and then prepare to lie back for supported Savasana.
Fold a blanket lengthways in three, and place the lower edge of the folded blanket just a few ribs or centimetres below your shoulder blade tips. Take another folded blanket to place under the head so that the head doesn’t tip backwards and is parallel to the floor instead.
Take a few minutes to come into Savasana, quietening the eyes, the mouth, the tongue, and the throat. Let go in the legs, the arms, the neck.
Gradually deepen your exhalation and continue with deeper exhalation and normal inhalation for 5-6 cycles.
Now come to Viloma inhalation, inhalation in stages.
Aim for 4 inhalations, and 3 pauses. Try to bring each inhalation and each pause to the same length as the one before: E.G. inhale for 2 seconds, pause 2, inhale 2 pause 2 and so on. Work to the length that is appropriate for you. Take a normal cycle of breath, or two as needed, in between each Viloma inhalation.
Continue for 5-6 cycles, according to your capacity, and then return to normal breathing. See if you have created any tightness in the eyes or face, and release that tightness now. Come back to neutral, to a soft normal breath.
As you are ready, turn to the side, remove your 3 fold blanket and then lie back for a few minutes in Savasana, keeping a blanket for the back of the neck and head.
Finally, roll to the side and come up, sitting quietly for a moment before you get up.
