It's a Matter of Life and Breath

The way you breathe — the rhythm of your respiration, its anatomical and emotional dimensions, the biomechanical means and neurophysical mechanisms, the resulting nuance, effectiveness, and potency, all of this together — has been influenced and impacted by illness, injury, intense incidents, and instruction. Your reactions to training and trauma become part of how you move and hold yourself.  Reactions turn into physical habits, which become automatic, persistent, and, though others often recognize you by the way you move and hold yourself, invisible to you — because they happen below the threshold of everyday awareness. Whether you notice these relentlessly recurring patterns or not, the effects are real, they’re detrimental, and they keep building up over time. The resulting limitations reduce your respiratory repertoire and resilience, inhibit motion and emotion, and restrict physical and mental flexibility.  By imposing deliberate changes, relying on willpower, requiring