in 1997, a year and a half into my two-year Yoga Center of Calgary teacher training program, myself and Sarah Wilson (no relation, but interesting) a fine yoga teacher who was also interested in breathwork, decided to work with each other. The intent was a trade of what we knew, and our approaches to breath as medicine.
Everything as going just fine. I went first, and Sarah was greatly apprciative of my discoveries regarding the lengthening the “end” of the exhalation, and it’s positive effects on anxiety and asthma.
I, up to that time, always did my work with people lying down as it is easier to find one’s diaphragm and concentration.
Sarah had me sit up, back against the wall.
She encouraged me to lengthen into the end of my exhalation as well. To this point all I had discovered about breathing was in a vacuum (ha… that’s a good choice of words). I was working on my own with very little input from anyone else. So this was the first time I had someone witnessing and supporting my work.
For which I was very grateful.
Sarah lead me farther and farther down the exhalation… one minute without breathing in, and I was becoming more and more relaxed as we continued.
And then it happened.
Apparently (said Sarah later) I was about one minute 30 seconds into my exhalation drift when I heard an audible inside-my-head ‘pop’.
And with this ‘pop’ my lung were again full of oxygen.
I hadn’t physically inhaled.
I sat in this waitful bliss for another ten seconds, and could have lasted much longer, but my brain was so excited that my thoughts punted me out of the space.
“What the hell was THAT?” I asked Sarah after explaining what had happened?
She didn’t know either. All I knew that I had somehow filled my lungs with oxygen without physically inhaling. we parted ways in wonderment.
It was many years later when I described this phenomenon to a high level swimmer that a glimmer of an answer came though. She said matter-of-factly “Oh year, I’ve heard of that… Olympic swimmers have talked about that. It happens sometime when they are deep in the zone.”
And that is it. I still to this day have not seen any studies on this “spontaneous inhalation.”
But again, not understanding what had happened, just spurred me on to greater study, and fired my interest in the respiratory system to even greater heights: I knew I was onto something.
If you are interested, here are the links to the other two posts of this series describing my three “Near Breath Experiences”.
#1. Take a Breath, David.
#3. Aura and Breathing - Well, that’s Interesting.
