What things give you energy?
Breath and food. But I also find movement, music, and being in a natural setting feel energizing,
PROMPT: Energy
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Tag Archives: Breath
Synchronicity [Haiku]
a walk in the park:
i breathe, we breathe,
then we are breath.
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Coming Up for Air [Free Verse]
Breaching the surface,
one's neck craning, stretching,
one's lips in a wide "O,"
one gasps,
sucking air with a monster moan,
or maybe it's dying-man death-rattle.
The gasped breath
is insufficient,
and the body shoves
it back out,
craving more &
impulsively air packing.
As one bobs in the water,
one times another gasp
to the rebounding breach.
This one is more satisfying,
more calming:
the perfect breath --
for all intents & purposes.
There may be a time
when each breath is as precious
as this one.
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Kevala [Free Verse]
breath ceases and the body is quiet and the mind is calm and there is nothing no world no throngs no hordes no disasters breath returns & so does the world
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Billowing Breath [Haiku]
breath billows in the cold, evening air -- a child amused
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BOOK REVIEW: Karate Science by J.D. Swanson
Karate Science: Dynamic Movement by J.D. SwansonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
When I picked up this book, I did so with the hope that it would be to striking as Jiichi Watanabe’s excellent book “The Secrets of Judo” [now sold as “The Art and Science of Judo”] is to grappling. That didn’t turn out to be the case. If Watanabe’s book has a fifty / fifty split between science and judo, Swanson’s book is about 80 percent Karate manual and 20 percent science. It’s a fine book about karate techniques, but if you want to understand biomechanics and how to optimize your movement, I think you can do better (particularly, if you would like insights that apply beyond Okinawan Karate.)
The book had two failings, keeping it from living up to its potential. First, it didn’t use graphics as well as it could have to help the reader visualize what is being said, or to point out the subtleties under discussion. Second, it generally presents the science at a shallow level. I’d been pleased to see that there was a chapter on breath, because I think that’s one of the most important and under-discussed factors in any system of movement (martial or otherwise.) However, I was disappointed to see that there wasn’t much to it besides some philosophizing about ki-ai.
There were a few valuable tid-bits here and there, points about which the book adds to one’s scientific / bodily understanding. The best example of this is probably the discussion of Intra-Abdominal Pressure (IAP,) which is where the book most shines with respect to offering some food for thought.
If you study Okinawan Karate and are looking for discussions about the difference between how various schools perform techniques, this may be the book for you. However, if you’re expecting some science in a book entitled “Karate Science,” I suspect you can do better.
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BOOK REVIEW: Yoga Anatomy, 3rd Ed. by Leslie Kaminoff and Amy Matthews
Yoga Anatomy by Leslie KaminoffMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Amazon.in Page
This book has several competitors, and so this review will focus on a few of the features that I believe make it one of the best books on yoga anatomy, and the most appropriate for many users. To clarify, H. David Coulter’s “Anatomy of Hatha Yoga” has some advantages over this book, but Coulter’s book is also denser and will send neophyte readers to the glossary / internet / library much more often. On the other hand, some of the other yoga anatomy books fixate entirely on postural yoga and treat it entirely as a matter of skeletal alignment and muscular engagement. While a lot of this book (and any such book, really) focuses on skeletal alignment and muscular engagement, I appreciated the books exploration of breath and the nervous system – topics that are often neglected. In short, this book offers a mix of reader-friendliness and detail that makes it at once approachable and tremendously informative.
One important feature of this book is that it avoids the dogmatism of some yoga texts, encouraging experimentation and recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach to bodies is bound to fail. This can best be seen in the “Cueing Callout” boxes that explore the pithy adjustment directives for which yoga teachers are famous (and often satirized,) advice that is often misunderstood in ways detrimental to a student’s progress.
A second key feature involves keeping anatomy and physiology distinct from the folk science of yoga / ayurveda. While Kaminoff and Matthews do refer to ideas like prana and apana, they do so in a broad, conceptual way that doesn’t conflate said ideas with science. A common problem in yoga texts is conflation of science with folk science such that confused readers are left with a muddle of puzzle pieces that don’t belong to the same puzzle.
Finally, as one who’s found pranayama (breathwork) to be one of the most profoundly transformative elements of a yoga practice, I appreciated that the book not only had a chapter on breath dynamics, but that all the posture discussions included a “breath inquiry” section that encouraged readers to reflect upon the effect of the posture on breathing, as well as suggesting ways in which a practitioner might experiment to improve one’s breathing.
The only criticism I have is that many of the text-boxes in the early chapters seemed to contain random information that could have been incorporated into the text, into footnotes, or edited out altogether. [In contrast to the aforementioned “Cueing Callout” boxes that had a clear and distinct purpose.] If you’re a yoga teacher or dedicated practitioner without a deep scientific background, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than this book for learning about the anatomy of yoga.
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Need to Breathe [Haiku]
watching bubbles rise, a screaming need to breathe builds by the second
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Breathing Haiku
I
the mountain
sets my mind on each breath —
thin-air teacher
II
air rushes in,
but the sinuous seedpod
merits no gasp
III
in the stillness,
my body skips breaths —
sometimes I notice…
IV
in balance —
my mind clear and at ease
stomach gliding
V
watching each breath,
none is the same, otherwise,
all of them are
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POEM: Breath
Breath unfolds the soul,
expanding a crumpled shell
until it is proudly rotund.
And that air fuels fires —
brightly burning white-hot fires
that flash-fry evil jinns,
into fine, floating soot
One day you’ll know the fuel from the fire.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 