Pranayama—The Ocean Breath
Arnold Shapiro, MD
Jan – Feb 2022 • Vol 3, No 119
Breathing techniques for Inner Peace date back at least 2000 years to India. Yoga teachings were compiled in printed form in the 4th Century A.D. from earlier oral traditions in “the yoga sutras of Patanjali.” In this work, Pranayama, the practice of breathing, is discussed in detail. One of its key components is Ujjayi, the “ocean breath.”
Ujjayi has two main components. The first is to make the sound of the ocean (at the shoreline) by compressing the vocal cords in the way you do a whisper. By doing so, through the inbreath and the outbreath, you can represent the sounds of ocean waves arriving and receding from the shore. The body’s ocean waves are also very rhythmic.
