NICOLA CAROLI | – Page 13

Breath Token November 2020

15. November 2020

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

In 2020 the breath tokens are about connecting breath and sound.

The art of humming

I’ve been revisiting Ways to Better Breathing, a book about the work of breath teacher Carola Spitz (in the US Carola Speads) and was struck by her precise guidance to humming.

Even though humming is perhaps the simplest kind of sounding one can do, there are, according to Carola Spitz, several aspects to consider:

“begin after a natural inhale, not a forced inhale

make the hum steady and pleasant

sense where the resonance of the hum is in the body

neither press to extend the hum or cut it off before it comes to its natural conclusion

after the hum sense the effect on the quality of the subsequent breaths

let the reactions of the breath happen without interfering”

The body loves the breath

15. November 2020

Breathwork

by Nicola Caroli

In the online Embodied Breathwork day in May of this year, I was delighted to take part in a breath teaching session by breathing expert Dr. Ela Manga. Dr Ela Manga‘s approach is also based on Natural Breathing. „Working with breathing is working with the body“, she said, „…the body loves the breath, it receives the breath. We have to do very little for the body to remember.“ I loved the philosophical, yet grounded and earthy way she spoke about breathing.

The session she was offering that day was about the way we relate to our bodies through „story“. „So much of illness is wrapped up in story“, she said, „in habitual story, in conditioned story, unconscious story“, and that we need „to find a new way to relate to story.“ To demonstrate what she meant by that, the participants of the Embodied Breathwork day were invited to an exploration she called 3 degrees of separation:

I suddenly heard the sound of my own breathing

15. November 2020

Breath in Literature & Art

by Nicola Caroli

I just finished listening to „Scenes From Village Life” by Amos Oz, a novel in the form of a collection of stories from an imaginary village by the name of Tel Ilan in Israel.

In the penultimate story, “Singing”, there is a brilliantly written „breathing scene“. One evening, people from the village come together for a sing-along at the home of Dalia and Avraham Levin. Four years previously their son had committed suicide, shot himself in the head under his parents‘ bed, where he lay curled up and dead for a day and a half, without his parents noticing. The story’s nameless narrator is part of the party of singers but feels himself increasingly drawn away from the party and towards the master bedroom upstairs which hasn’t been used since the suicide. He doesn‘t understand what’s happening to him but as he stands alone in the darkened, death-filled room – in stark contrast to the communal activity downstairs, he knows that this is where he is meant to be. And just at that moment, he hears his own breath in the silence after the singers have stopped singing.

Why do cats purr?

15. November 2020

Breathing Science

by Nicola Caroli

Here‘s an answer to a question I, and, no doubt, many others have wondered about at least once in their life time „Why do cats purr?“. Purring is the breath related phenomenon that would be utterly desirable for us humans to be able to do but which we, unfortunately, cannot imitate.

Kate Wong, in Scientific American magazine, interviewed Ramona Turner, a veterinarian practicing in California, who enlightens us on the meaning of cat purring, and how it relates to breathing and vocalisation.

Breath Token October 2020

15. October 2020

Breathwork

by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

In 2020 the breath tokens are about connecting breath and sound.

Smelling a rose and letting out a sigh

I’m one of these people who stop for roses. When I walk past a garden fence with a rose bush close enough to reach with my nose, I’ll take a sniff. I love all the different roses and their smells, especially at this time of year when only the last flew blooms are left.

When I smell a rose, I draw the scent into my nose, into myself and let out a satisfied sigh with an Ah or some similar sound, or some words of appreciation like “wonderful” or “glorious”…

Being inhabited by air

15. October 2020

Breath Diary

by Nicola Caroli

I‘m currently on the island Rügen by the Baltic Sea Coast with a yoga and fasting group and today there‘s quite a storm. We walked to the beach this morning to do our daily exercises but had to leave because we got covered in sand. The wind was so strong that it was difficult to walk straight. I felt the air pushing into my side like a body, swaying to the left of the path. It intrigued me thinking about air as a body.

Later, when I was lying down on the floor looking out at the swaying pine trees and hearing the wind roaring through the open windows of the yoga room, I imagined the air being drawn into the nostrils as something more substantial than gas, more like a liquid. It was a strange sensation, like becoming inhabited with the inhale and with the exhale being vacated, and then during the breath pause, the house being empty, so to speak.

To walk among trees

14. October 2020

Breath in Literature & Art

by Nicola Caroli

I‘d like to share an excerpt from an article titled D.H. Lawrence on Trees, Solitude, and How We Root Ourselves When Relationships Collapse, in which Maria Popova, mastermind of Brain Pickings, highlights the relation-ship between humans and trees.
From a breathing perspective, this relation-ship is about co-existence and co-operation between equals. D.H. Lawrence takes on a similar stance in his novel Aaron’s Rod. In this passage from the novel, he captures the presence of cypress trees in Tuscany, turning the conventional paradigm of human communication and expression amidst a silent, passive nature on its head. Here it is the cypresses that „breathe“, „communicate“ and even „commemorate“, whereas mankind is diminished by a loss of reality, and of life itself through its own achievements of civilisation.

Your diaphragm is a back muscle

14. October 2020

Allgemein, Breathwork

by Nicola Caroli

Here’s a great article by Tiffany Turley from Alignment Lab about the function of the diaphragm as a postural muscle, clearly outlined and with an exercise video at the end. The aptly named Alignment Lab have a great body work approach, combining Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilisation and Yoga Therapy.

“When you think of your diaphragm you probably think of it as something that helps you breath and not much more than that. But your diaphragm is actually one of your major back muscles! Because of its attachments to the spine, ribs and sternum, the diaphragm is integral in supporting the joints and disks of the back and in keeping your spinal column upright and stable.

Breath Token September 2020

15. September 2020

Breathwork

by Nicola Caroli

A breath token is a breathing exploration that I develop for friends & clients and send out as a gift.

In 2020 the breath tokens are about connecting breath and sound.

WU Sound

Yesterday I watched a video by trauma expert Peter Levine on sexual healing. In the video he recommended and demonstrated the vocal exercise of sounding „WU“. Originally this sound comes from the Tibetan chanting tradition.

The WU sound is healing because it vibrates in the area of the belly, the pelvis and the pelvic floor which sends a message of relaxation in the viscera to the brain. This connection between the organs of the viscera and the brain is mediated by the vagus nerve.

Well-brethed

15. September 2020

Breath Diary

by Nicola Caroli

I can‘t remember where I found the entry „well-brethed“ on my many Google search explorations but I was delighted when I did. What a great way to describe breathing well.

Well-brethed meant breathing well, with strong lungs
Best-brethed: with the strongest breath, the best lungs
and
Well-wynded: with good lungs
and, of course,
Best-wynded: with the strongest breath, the best lungs

I love the past participle form, implying that this is something that happens to me, I am „well breathed“, breath moves through me; I am „well winded“, palpable air movement happens inside of me.