Beach Yoga: Natural breathing on Sun Salutation
On a sunny morning in the beach, I was doing the Sun Salutation sequence directly on the soft sand. After some poses I realized my breath was “wrong” due to a very simple reason: during the inhalation, I felt some sand from the ground in my nose. When going from Plank Pose to Ashtanga Namaskara (eight limbs in the floor), the recommendation is to exhale. As my face approached the floor, I was inhaling (exhale would be the right), and some sand particles started coming into my nose.
Then the insight occurred: when my face approach the ground, I should exhale, this way the air from my nose/mouth will disperse the dust away. Likewise, every time I ascend to the open space or the sky, I inhale, so my lung s appreciate the fresh air from the wind. I thought “It is not by coincidence that in nature the ground is usually dirty and the air is clean”.
This is one of those moments where you feel you gained knowledge directly through experience. I do not recall reading or being taught by anyone this "insight". I felt that nature itself taught me this lesson.
It also makes me think how the first Yoga Masters developed the poses and breathing techniques. For me it feels that this approach of trial and error would happen quite often, “Hum, breathing here makes my nose full of dust, let’s try something different”, I can imagine they saying.
Sometimes I feel we should get our hands dirty, practicing in the open air, in the grass/sand/mud, and opening ourselves for what nature can teach us.
