Yoga Report

I came across a book by Stig Åvall Severinsen which I really think deserves an English translation. If you saw The Big Blue back in the 80′s and still wonder how a person can build up the physique and will power to hold the breath for such a long time  YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK ! In the Big Blue there are some references to yoga techniques and  to my knowledge this is the first attempt ever to go through this in such an scientific way !

Inspired by the Big Blue I decided that pranayama, breathing exercises from yoga  was really something I wanted to go deeper with. To my surprise I discovered that retention of the breath came  without effort after  Nadi Shodan. I followed the ratio given in Prana Pranayama Prana Vidya and slowly over several months I gradually increased the ratio.  I simply did not feel the urge to breath as frequently as I do normally. At first I was a bit scared by this fact and I was scared that my brain would get damaged by the lack of Oxygen. As well as counting the nadi shodana I counted the time I performed this natural breath retention afterwards. I did not really believe my counting was accurate because I simply did not think it was possible to hold the breath for such a long time without being an elite athlete.  To make sure I was counting on a correct speed  I took a loud clock and I counted in my head at the same time as the clock was ticking. After 2 minutes I was excited about how easy this was. I noticed movements within the body but I continued. I passed 6 minutes and now I was really chocked  I had the fear that I will actually die from this. After 7 minutes I stopped and it took quite a long time for my breath to get back to normal.

In my life there were a lot of things that really took energy and focus and  I remember this moments of breath retention as really peaceful and it was like I was recharging my batteries in some way.  During this period it was extreme how many things I was able to deal with at the same time. My personal belief is that I would have been totally burned out in this period if it was not for the Nadi Shodan. When I look back at this period I amazed how good timing it was.  My father was going through a very though time and I visited him a lot, my girlfriend since 2 years decided to leave me, I had extra responsibilities on top of my study at university etc. Some years earlier just one of these things would have got me totally paralysed. I totally admit that this was a very emotional period and I cried many evenings etc. but it was like I got extra power to go through this from the Pranayama.

Now several years later when I read this book I understand what processes actually happened in my body and the fact that the author is named Stig makes it extra intense since that is also the name of my father. had I read this book at this point I think I would have continued with my practice but back then I had a lot of worries that it was dangerous what I was doing etc.

This book made me interested in taking a seminar with Stig and learn about the special techniques he talk about in the book ! As always I recommend learning yoga and breathing techniques from an experienced teacher.

books mentioned in this article:

Prana Pranayama Prana Vidya by Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati

Træk vejret by Stig Åvall Severinsen