Breathing Part 2 (TVA engagement)

In this part of our breathing practice, we’re going to think about engaging the transversus abdominis – that’s the really deep abdominal muscle. Place your fingertips just inside your hip bones so you can feel what’s happening here. On a strong exhale, engage your deep abdominal muscles by imagining you’re pulling your hip bones towards each other or making a ‘sssssss’ sound. As you do this, you should feel some movement beneath your fingertips. Slowly release that engagement as you inhale. Again, exhale and create that engagement. Then slowly inhale and release the contraction slowly as you inhale. At first, we’re aiming for a 100% effort contraction on the exhale and then on the inhale, slowly releasing that contraction from that 100% effort to 90% to 80% to 70% to 60%… etc all the way down until you are completely relaxed at the end of the inhale. Once you are able to control the intensity of the contraction on your inhale, you’re going to exhale, create that 100% intensity contraction, then dial the contraction back to around 30% effort – you’re then going to try and maintain that 30% effort contraction as you take 6 x deep breaths. Don’t worry if this feels impossible at first – keep trying and building on it over the course of the program!