Breath

The other day my teacher sternly reminded me to breathe.

I am still stunned that I needed such a reminder. All of the practicing and writing about practice and thinking about practice that I do...and I needed a reminder to breathe?

Yes, badly.

I was in Baddha Konasana, and my mind was miles away from the breath, focusing on drawing my shoulders back, softening and opening my chest, reaching my chin to the earth. Focusing on the product of the pose, the end point. Squeezing my brain to see my body's way into the fullest expression of the pose I could find. Fighting the body, steering with the ego. Not noticing how my breath had become shallow, how my internal connection to the bandhas and the chakras had weakened, becoming only a wisp. My teacher reminded me to draw prana in through the breath, right into Muladhara, where the pose is rooted and flourishes.

The brain is atmospheres away from the root chakra.

We can get so lofty with seeking out the rightness, the finish line, the fifth breath. The realm of the thinking brain can be the arid, least nourished, highest points on the tree. If we practice from there, we are not nourishing the fundamental roots of the practice. The practice lives on breath. Without it, we do not see the benefits that fill the body all the way up to cleanse our critical thoughts; without breath, we can only force our way into each asana with a grinding, ego-driven brain-engine that thinks it can think its way into a pose.