Archive for August, 2010

This is a short video of underwater yoga freediving of two types of fish pose (lotus) swimming by me (Simon Borg-Olivier in the black Stingray suit) and Christopher Morey (in the blue Orca Suit).
The video was shot at William Truebridge’s Freediving Master Class (brilliant) at the Blue Hole Long Island Bahamas, September 2009.
Thanks to Freediver Photographer Alfredo Romo for filming us and for allowing use to show his video here.

Underwater yoga has been a favourite pastime of mine since I was a kid. My father (George Borg-Olivier) was a freediver in the Mediterranean Sea and he taught me how to swim a lap of an olympic pool underwater before I swim on the surface. In my late teens my Tibetan Lama told me that traditionally (in the system he learnt) that postures where help for a long as one breath retention. So progressively I developed my underwater yoga practice know finding it the easiest place to hold the breath and be in a pose. In this practice I take a breath in, hold my breath, go underwater and get into a posture, hold for some time floating just under the surface, then exhale fully and sink down underwater (to the bottom if it is not far!) and hold my breath out and perform uddiyana bandha, mula bandha, nauli and lauliki (rolling my abdomen with my chest expanded etc). Then, I swim to the surface (often still in pose such as the lotus as in the video above) and when I break the surface I inhale to begin the next posture. I regularly practice a 30 minute sequence of up to 30 posture in this manner.

In the photographs below, photographed by Freediver Photographer Mads Becker Jørgensen (thank you Mads) at Deans Blue Hole on Long Island in the Bahamas, I have no air in my lungs and I sinking to the bottom in Supta Bhekasana in the first photo and Padmasana in the second photo. I am only about 5 metres from the surface but you can see the blackness of the 250 metre deep Blue Hole on the left hand side of the first photo and the right hand side of the second photo. On one such breath retention I was in Baddha Padmasana (the bound lotus) with no air in my lungs sinking down and waiting to touch the bottom…but the bottom didnt come …  and it was getting dark… then realised I missed the floor and gone into the Blue hole … with no air … still bound in lotus … I felt briefly like Houdini before mildly panicking and undoing my legs and swimming to the surface which was much further up than I imagined. This experience gave me a lot of respect to William Truebridge who goes down 95 metres into this hole in one breath, and to all the freedivers who dive in the Blue Hole.

In this third photo I am doing an inhalation retention and floating in Padma Ardha Matsyendrasana. No chance of sinking in this one! Also very stimulating on the spine and internal organs to be so twisted with lungs full of air.

Many years ago I realised that I liked the effects of not breathing so much (please see my last post on not breathing much and how to slow the heart ) that I decided to incorporate this into my land practice as my Tibetan Lama had suggested. Hence although I teach most of my students to breath naturally in a posture (until it is mastered, as suggested in the Sutras of Patanjali, and as B.K.S Iyengar had told me when I was lucky enough to train with him) in my own practice i regularly hold my breath in and out for extended periods of time while holding posture and while moving between them.

The essence of pranayama comes from learning how not to breathe (see my post on the reasons for breathing in yoga ). But often people use the muscles of breathing for reasons other than to get more air. With an understanding of breath-control you can use the muscles of breathing for benefit wihtout actually breathing. For example, expanding the chest (like inhaling to the chest but not inhaling) can pull energy and information up the spine; contracting the abdomen (like making a full exhalation from the abdomen but not exhaling) can give some stability and strength to the lower trunk as well as massage the internal organs; and learning how to use the diaphragm (like inhaling with the diaphragm into the abdomen but not inhaling) can relieve lower back pain, increase trunk strength, calm the nerves and enhance blood flow without the heart beating faster.

The nice thing about the lotus swimming I do in this video is the effect on the spine. The hips and the arms move in opposite directions to move through the water. This uses the side spine muscles in a way that creates spinal side bending. The spine is mobilised and manipulated because to move in this way you need to relax the muscles of exhalation that can stiffen the spine by gentle activating the diaphragm (the main muscle of inhalation) and alternately use the side spine muscles. As the muscles on one side of spine are activated by bringing the same side hip and shoulder closer the opposite side muscles reflexly relaxed. Hence, the spine is massaged and blood flow is increased by the alternate on-off pumping of the spinal muscles without the need for the heart to beat faster. This principle is easily adapted to yoga done in a room or even in natural walking.

As an aside, and just for fun, it is interesting to relate my experience with my kids Amaliah who was at the time just 6 and Eric who was just 3. In May 2010 I was with the kids in a pool and Eric who could not really swim on top of the water much yet was sitting on the edge of the pool and put his legs into the lotus posture and dropped himself head first into the water then to my surprise swam for a while in lotus. When he surfaced I asked him how he learnt this trick. His reply ‘I saw Amaliah doing it!’ So I questioned my daughter ‘How did you learn this?’and she replied ‘I saw a video of you doing it Papa!’. Hmmm so it seems one doesnt really teach kids anything – they just copy!

You can see more of Amaliah and Eric doing their munchkin yoga for kids at Yoga Synergy at http://munchkinkids.com

You can learn more about breath-control and the applied anatomy and physiology of yoga on our online course

This video was shot in the Bahamas in October 2009 at William Truebridge’s Freediving Masterclass where I had the honour of being invited to teach these amazing elite athletes yogic techniques of how to be relaxed in stressful situations. The video shows me using breath-control techniques (pranayama) to slow my heart beat from 88 to 32 beats per minute in 45 seconds.

The ability to do this comes from years of yoga training certainly but that it can happens at all is related to the ‘diving reflex’. The mammalian diving reflex optimises respiration which allows mammals to stay underwater for a long time. It is seen most in aquatic mammals, but exists in a weaker version in other mammals, including humans. The slowing of heart beat (bradycardia) is the first response from the diving reflex. Immediately upon facial contact with cold water, the human heart rate slows down ten to twenty-five percent. Some sea animals such as seals can go from about 125 beats per minute to as low as 10 when they are diving. Making the heart rate slow down lessens the need for bloodstream oxygen, and leaves more to be used by the brain and the heart.The reflex is triggered specifically by cold water contacting the face, which in this video demonstration I am obviously not doing. The diving reflex is also triggered by sudden increases in carbon dioxide levels. So in this video I spent about 3 minutes doing natural minimal diaphragmatic breathing very similar to what essentially approaches kevala kumbhaka (spontaneous cessation of breath, in this case still with about 2 litres of air in my lungs, yet without any conscious effort). Then I simply and suddenly exhale fully and held my breath out and did a gentle (not forced) uddiyana bandha (a thoracic Mueller manoeuvre). The most important thing was I did not do any deep fast breathing first as this would have significantly dropped the carbon dioxide levels. The sudden change from normal levels of carbon dioxide to increased levels of carbon dioxide seems to trigger the diving reflex even though there was no cold water applied to my face. I was also holding jalandhara bandha (having my head moved forward and my neck moved backwards) and a type of jiva bandha (tip of my tongue gently pressed against the back of my upper teeth and the roof of the mouth. I believe these two things also had a role in the slowing of the heart. The best thing of course is the feeling after. The exercise causes an increase in blood flow to the brain so I was left with a sense of immense peace and clarity, and focused alert energy.

Another benefit of this type of reduced breathing practice is that it reduces your appetite. I used the technique daily about 18 months ago to undergo a 55 day juice fast while travelling internationally and teaching with no problems at all.

Another interesting phenomenon was that just before I completed the exercise the relative values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure switched. So instead of blood pressure being about 140 over 70 (about normal) just before I inhaled at the end the blood pressure went to about 90 over 120. This is very strange but on the day we actually reproduced this result in 3 people including William Truebridge (who was remarkable in his attempt). We presume this shift of blood pressure (an apparent reversal) is due to peripheral circulation being reduced due to the the diving reflex.

Thanks to Freediving world record holder William Truebridge for teaching the technique (he can do it better than I can), and thanks to static apneoa national record holder Glenn Venghaus for use of his heart monitoring equipment and his learned advice. Also thanks to other inspirational members of Williams Masterclass all of whom can hold their breaths far longer than my ‘modest’ 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I would like to add that that even though I have been holding my breath in for underwater swimming since my father (George Borg-Olivier) taught me in 1966 and have practiced uddiyana bandha since i was taught it by Basil Brown in 1968 I can in no way compare my abilities to these freedivers who in my opinion are master hatha yogis